DISRAELI

by Blake Robert ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1967

The last official life of Benjamin Disraeli (Monypenny & Buckle, 1920), ran to six volumes; this present brilliant study by an English historian, a reappraisal of Disraeli's career in modern terms, covers no more than 800 eminently readable pages. In a single paragraph it is impossible to do more than hint at the scope of the book, in which the author not only writes in detail of Disraeli's astonishing career, but gives an equally vivid account of England's social and political history during his lifetime. Born in London in 1804, son of a wealthy Italian Jew, Disraeli was baptized in the Church of England and brought up a Christian. Determined as a young man to ""reach the top of the greased pole,"" he did so, in spite of the mistrust cast on him by early shady financial transactions and scandalous love affairs, and the furor aroused by his first novel, Vivian Grey, ""a youthful indiscretion he never outgrew."" Witty, flamboyant, part adventurer, part political genius, Disraeli sat in the House of Commons for 44 years, wrecked ministries, remade the Conservative Party, and married a rich widow older than he for her money, a marriage that turned into a true love-match. An unsurpassed Parliamentary speaker, he was applauded even by his bitterest enemy. Gladstone; as Prime Minister, he treated Victoria with an adoring informality that delighted her; as first Earl of Beaconsfield, he starred in the House of Lords as he had done in the Commons. Never quite respectable, surrounded always by an aura of romance and mystery, Disraeli, flamboyant to the last, died in March, 1881 a rouged, witty, lonely old man who never lost his zest for life. Written with a sense of immediacy that matches Disraeli's own timelessness but too long for casual readers, this brilliantly documented and scholarly book should stand as one of the outstanding biographies of this decade and is a must for all students of English 19th-century politics.

Pub Date: March 1, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION