During the high tide of the Victorian era, the political life of the nation was dominated by two men, Disraeli and Gladstone. Gladstone is an obvious choice for one of the top statesmen of the era, he was elected four times to the premiership. Disraeli was not quite so fortunate. However, given the short period of time that he was in office he accomplished a great deal. He brought the tories back from the dead, passed a reform bill and managed to acquire the Suez Canal. At the Congress of Berlin, Disraeli's command of the situation even impressed Bismark (not exactly a slouch in these sorts of things). Not bad from a rather foppish young man who specialized in "Silver Fork" novels (a fictional version of lifestyles of the rich and famous in the 19th century).

Blake's book is the best one on the subject of Benjamin Disraeli. The complex story of the novelist turned politican is brought out in all of its facets. Disraeli was probably one of the most interesting people to be prime minister (after perhaps Churchill and Walpole) and Blake's book shows the reader how he did it.

Blake's Disraeli is not only flawless in its interpretation of Disraeli but also in its style. It is a work by which all other biographies must be judged. Simply put, it is the perfect biography.

This is a work of considerable scholarship which chronicles the life of one of Great Britain's outstanding statesmen. The book covers the political life of Disraeli admirably, but also gives a view of the private Disraeli: confidant of Victoria, prolific novelist, inventor of the crouton.

This is an insightful lesson into the man. Edgar Feuchtwanger makes the subject more interesting than ever with an easy to read style.

This is an excellent biography of Benjamin D'Israeli. Pearson has nicely captured D'Israeli's life. He allows you to get to know D'Israeli during his many pursuits and love of travel. However, D'Israeli's written and political accomplishments are more so mentioned than that of his personal or private life. As a biography of a politician one may expect it to be very dry, but this is one biography that is not. If anyone is interested in D'Israeli and wants to be bombarded with dates and figures of his life than this is not the book to get, but if one is looking for a good read with a feeling of satisfaction at the end this is it.

Happy Reading

As Robert Blake stated in his one volume masterpiece "Disraeli" this originally 6-volume work by Monypenny and Buckle is both a "quarry and a classic." It contains a wealth of correspondence from Disraeli both is his public capacity as a minister of state and his private writings to numerous friends, relative and confidantes at various periods of his life. Reading this lengthy biography an objective observer can easily be persuaded that Disraeli was perhaps not only the most prolific but also the most interesting correspondent to ever write in the English language. The biography itself is not of the magnificent quality of Blake's Disraeli but holds the interest of the reader at every stage. At times it seems that Disraeli is his own biographer inasmuch as protracted portions of certain volumes contain nothing but his letters, but why should they not? He had a sparkling style in writing on even the most mundane subjects and the authors wisely allow him to be the primary spokesman and reporter on many of the events, both major and minor, of his and his country's life. This is an old work but repays the reader for his time, and one comes away with a larger understanding and esteem for a statesman who truly understood the nature of conservatism.

Locates Disraeli in a European, cosmopolitan context, not merely as either a conservative empire-inventor or novelist but also as an outsider establishing himself as an insider. It contains a compelling essay on the breakdown or hypomania he suffered in his 20s.

Jane Ridley really gets to grips with most of the complex and exotic early life of the great Victorian novelist, "outsider politician" and remarkable statesman who became Prime Minister of the largest empire the world has ever seen. Dizzy's critical relationships with his father and sister are fully explored (material about his mother is much harder to find). His reckless financial speculations, debt and near bankrupcy are used to explain his unlikely switch from literature to politics (MPs couldn't be imprisoned for debt). His romance and marriage to Mary Ann is given sympathetic and illuminating treatment. Jane Ridley spent several years extensively researching this book (witnessed by the hundreds of footnotes and references)but it reads well - not only a respectable academic biography but also a very good read. Disraeli himself would have been pleased.

Coningsby is an interesting political-romantic novel set in early nineteenth century England. In much of the first part of the book, Disreali introduces the main characters and the political and social background against which the action in the later parts of the book will be played. In this book Disraeli covers several topics. He explains the state of parliamentary politics of the day and the changing social and political situations of the nobility and the rising manufacturing class. As the title character, Coningsby, develops his political philosophy, Disraeli gives an insight into his own core political beliefs. Through Sidonia, one of his main characters, Disreali makes a pitch for the rights of Jews, a group to which Disraeli is linked by consangunity, though not be religion. To make it all entertaining, Disraeli takes Coningsby and his lover through a long and chaste romantic quest, in which they finally overcome the obstacles placed in their way by their families. The book, ultimately, provides a triumph of love over hatred and pettiness. The strong points of this book are its pleasant story line and the ability to tell a romantic and political tale without including the moral failings, without which so many modern authors seem incapable of expressing themselves. The weak points are found in its age and storybook ending. The repeated references to so many details of political life of his day and the simililarities of characters to prominent people, which may have been amusing to the readers of his day, are lost on most contemporary readers. The ending, in which all the injustices inflicted on Coningsby by petty people around him are reversed through acts of self-sacrifice which set the world right, introduces a sense of fantasy which makes the book seem just a bit too much to believe. Overall this book is a worthwhile read

The author provides a thorough insight of the rise of a commoner of jewish descent to the highest political rank, Prime Minister and leader of the aristocratic Tory party.

Despite its initial slow start the book gathers pace as Disraeli developes into the skilled debater and master parlimentary tatician. The various interchanges between Gladstone, Peel, Bright, O'Connell and Derby make for interesting reading.

The author explores the relationships that Disraeli formed during his life and provides the reader with a glimpse of the era and the mind of the man through many extracts of private correspondance between the subject and his peers,friends and loves.

A thorough commentry of an interesting life.

This text is a concise guide to the politics of a period dominated by the eponymous statesmen. The two individuals, both originally from the same political party - the Tory or Conservative Party - came to represent markedly opposing positions on the political spectrum, and between them sustained a personal bitterness that enlivened the parliamentary politics of the Mid and High Victorian periods. The Anglican - though Jewish by race, and mindset - Benjamin Disraeli only managed to escape his myriad debts late in life, and always had an eccentric approach to the pressing questions of the day (on being asked on whose side in the great debate on Darwin's recently propounded theory of evolution he stood, Disraeli quipped that he was "on the side of the Angels"). Neverthless, this outsider - who also found the time to be the world's highest paid novelist of his day - came to lead the great party of the establishment. His rival, William Gladstone, came from a wealthy, landed family, was educated at Eton & Oxford, in the bosom of the British ruling classes. Yet this dyed in the wool High Anglican, came to lead a party that was to systematically curtail the rights of the landowning classes and uproot the privileges of the established church in the United Kingdom. Naturally, the book principally focuses upon the High Victorian period of British politics, that is from the passage of the Second Reform Act of 1867, through Gladstone's first ministry (1868-1874) and onto Disraeli's second ministry (1874-1880). Essential information is placed in context by a judicious selection of contemporaneous source material inviting readers to evaluate the record of the two individuals for themselves. If anything, the book's utility is hindered by an overly cautious approach on the part of the author to deliver his own assessment of the history of the period. Happily, the introduction succeeds in placing the men very much in their milieu, and an extensive bibliography gives pointers for readers to pursue their studies of the period & personalities further. The author, a tutor at Brentwood School, Essex, in the United Kingdom, has written a range of intermediate level texts geared for the schools market. This book serves as a benchmark for all attempts to bring to life the struggles, issues and drama of British politics & society in that period.

"Lothair" (1870) was Disraeli's first novel for over 20 years.

Divided into 89 short chapters, it starts slowly. Religion, which forms to be the overarching theme of the book, is not seriously discussed until Chapter 9. As a result, the reader unfamiliar with the book's subject matter will be somewhat surprised by the quick progression into religious controversy which follows the extensive chronicling of Lothair's social engagements and family history in the earlier chapters.

However, to a large extent this foreshadows the pattern of the book as a whole. Although some intermingling of these two themes inevitably takes place, chapters seem devoted either to description of events at which Lothair is in attendance, or to discussion of the philosophical merits of religions and/or atheistic structures. Often, several chapters in a row will be devoted to one or the other.

As was pointed out at the time of publication:

"There is no deep conviction, no ardent purpose, no over-mastering sentiment..." (H.T. Tuckerman, 1870)

I found it, in this respect, oddly similar to Huxley's "Brave New World", where characters often exist largely to put forward dogma, with little ultimate narrative adjudication. This is, however, certainly not a criticism of either book; indeed, perhaps this challenges the reader to themself assess the relative merits of the positions advanced.

In later chapters, when Lothair is travelling outside England, descriptions of landscapes - physical, political and historical - are all proffered, adding a third (although minor) theme to the two I described above.

Finally, whatever one makes of the merits of Disraeli's religious dialogues or social descriptions, for a reader in the early 21st century it is fascinating to reflect upon what issues preoccupied the English (and perhaps European) polity in the mid 19th century. The device of the novel, in my opinion, provides a very helpful and time-saving medium to display these. Some brief examples suffice:
1) The use - several times - of the term "semitism", and not merely to describe Jewish or Middle-Eastern religious thought, but instead to mean all principles of monotheistic religion.
2) Italian revolutionaries portrayed, not as modern nationalists, but instead as self-styled pagan descendants of the Roman Empire; and opposed to semitism, rather than (say) class privilege.
3) Victorian views on evolution, science more generally, and the juxtaposition of these with political and religious freedom.

All of these would have been interesting no matter who the author. Disraeli's personal touch is one of ambiguity in this reader's view. The book's plot is midly shambolic. However, there are some very good gems to be found within. My personal favourite is:

"If every man were straightforward in his opinions, there would be no conversation. The fun of talk is to find out what a man really thinks, and then contrast it with the enormous lies he has been telling at dinner, and perhaps all his life."

In short, this is a book worth reading. It may not be a masterpiece, but it is written with wit and learning in various parts, and provides a quick retrospective into a turbulent time in European history.