Benjamin Disraeli

"Disraeli" redirects here. For other uses, see Disraeli (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable The Earl of Beaconsfield KG PC FRS
Disraeli in 1878
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 20 February 1874 – 21 April 1880
Monarch	Queen Victoria
Preceded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Succeeded by	William Ewart Gladstone
In office 27 February 1868 – 1 December 1868
Monarch	Queen Victoria
Preceded by	The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Leader of the Opposition
In office 1 December 1868 – 17 February 1874
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Succeeded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 6 July 1866 – 29 February 1868
Preceded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Succeeded by	George Ward Hunt
In office 26 February 1858 – 11 June 1859
Preceded by	Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bt.
Succeeded by	William Ewart Gladstone
In office 27 February 1852 – 17 December 1852
Preceded by	Charles Wood
Succeeded by	William Ewart Gladstone
Personal details
Born	21 December 1804 London, England, UK
Died	19 April 1881 (aged 76) London, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Mary Anne Lewis
Religion	Church of England (for most of his life) Judaism (until age 13)
Signature

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humble origins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Although his father had him baptised to Anglicanism at age 12, he was nonetheless Britain's first and thus far only Prime Minister who was born into a Jewish family—originally from Italy.^[1] He played an instrumental role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.

Although a major figure in the protectionist wing of the Conservative Party after 1844, Disraeli's relations with the other leading figures in the party, particularly Lord Derby, the overall leader, were often strained. Not until the 1860s would Derby and Disraeli be on easy terms, and the latter's succession of the former assured. From 1852 onwards, Disraeli's career would also be marked by his often intense rivalry withWilliam Ewart Gladstone, who eventually rose to become leader of the Liberal Party. In this feud, Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s. In 1876 Disraeli was raised to thepeerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly four decades in the House of Commons.

Before and during his political career, Disraeli was well-known as a literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally regarded as a part of the Victorian literary canon. He mainly wrote romances, of which Sybil and Vivian Grey are perhaps the best-known today. He is exceptional among British Prime Ministers for having gained equal social and political renown. He was twice successful as the Glasgow University Conservative Association's candidate for Rector of the University, holding the post for two full terms between 1871 and 1877.

Literary career

Disraeli turned towards literature after his financial disaster, motivated in part by a desperate need for money, and brought out his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1826. Disraeli's biographers agree that Vivian Grey was a thinly veiled re-telling of the affair of The Representative, and it proved very popular on its release, although it also caused much offence within the Toryliterary world when Disraeli's authorship was discovered. The book, initially anonymous, was purportedly written by a "man of fashion" – someone who moved in high society. Disraeli, then just twenty-three, did not move in high society, and the numerous solecisms present in his otherwise brilliant and daring work made this painfully obvious. Reviewers were sharply critical on these grounds of both the author and the book. Furthermore, John Murray believed that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence–an accusation denied at the time, and by the official biography, although subsequent biographers (notably Blake) have sided with Murray.^[15]

A Young Disraeli

by Sir Francis Grant, 1852

After producing a Vindication of the English Constitution,^[16] and some political pamphlets, Disraeli followed up Vivian Grey with a series of novels, The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), Venetia and Henrietta Temple (1837). During the same period he had also written The Revolutionary Epick and three burlesques, Ixion, The Infernal Marriage, and Popanilla. Of these only Henrietta Temple (based on his affair with Henrietta Sykes, wife of Sir Francis William Sykes, 3rd Bt) was a true success.^[17]

During the 1840s Disraeli wrote three political novels collectively known as "the Trilogy"–Sybil, Coningsby, and Tancred.^[18]

Disraeli's relationships with other male writers of his period were strained or non-existent. After the disaster of The Representative, John Gibson Lockhartbecame a bitter enemy and the two never reconciled.^[19] Disraeli's preference for female company prevented the development of contact with those who were otherwise not alienated by his opinions, comportment or background. One contemporary who tried to bridge the gap, William Makepeace Thackeray, established a tentative cordial relationship in the late 1840s only to see everything collapse when Disraeli took offence at a burlesque of him which Thackeray penned for Punch. Disraeli took revenge in Endymion (published in 1880), when he caricatured Thackeray as "St. Barbe".^[20]

Disraeli's writing is generally interesting, and his books teem with striking thoughts, shrewd maxims, and brilliant phrases which stick in the memory; on the other hand, he is often artificial, extravagant, and turgid. Critic William Kuhn argued that much of his fiction can be read as "the memoirs he never wrote", revealing the inner life of a politician for whom the norms of Victorian public life appeared to represent a social straitjacket – particularly with regard to his allegedly "ambiguous sexuality."^[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli