How to I configure lynx user settings without changing OS level settings?

I want to configure lynx to always accept cookies, but without having to hack the OS level configuration in /etc/lynx.cfg.

How can I do this? Note: calling lynx with command line options is not an acceptable answer, but if you need to setup ENVIRONMENT variables, it's ok, I can put them in .bashrc.

As I said in my comment, the easiest way to do this (since according to its man page, lynx does not have a user configuration file) would be to add this line to your ~/.bashrc:

alias lynx='lynx -accept_all_cookies'

Then source ~/.bashrc or just open a new terminal and run lynx. Since it is now an alias, you will get the same behavior as if you had explicitly ran lynx -accept_all_cookies, but in a way that is completely transparent to the user.

Step one - copy system lynx.cfg:

cp /etc/lynx.cfg ~/

Step two - modify your ~/lynx.cfg to your heart's content.

Step three - launch lynx with your custom cfg:

lynx -cfg=~/lynx.cfg <url>

It's possible older versions of lynx did not allow you to specify a config, but you can with my version.

lynx --version

Lynx Version 2.8.6rel.5 (09 May 2007)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 1.0.0-fips, ncurses 5.7.20090207(wide)
Built on linux-gnu Nov 23 2010 12:44:01

Copyrights held by the University of Kansas, CERN, and other contributors.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License.
See http://lynx.isc.org/ and the online help for more information.

See http://www.openssl.org/ for information about OpenSSL.

Lynx supports per-user configuration in .lynxrc:

The Lynx Options Menu may be accessed by pressing the “o” key. It allows you to change options at runtime, if you need to. Most changes are read from & saved to your .lynxrc file; those which are not are marked (!) in the form-based menu (as below). Many other options are stored in the lynx.cfg file.