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.