First published in 1966, Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli is one of the supreme political biographies of the last hundred years. An outsider, a nationalist, a European, a Romantic and a Tory - Disraeli's story is an extraordinary one. Born in 1804, the grandson of an immigrant Italian Jew, he became leader of the Conservative Party and was twice Prime Minister. Famous for the 1867 Reform Act, his purchasing of the Suez Canal and his diplomatic triumphs at the Congress of Berlin, he was also the creator of the political novel and, in Sybil, wrote the major 'Condition of England' work of fiction. 'An outstandingly successful biography . . . Disraeli has never been brought so vividly to life.' Sir Philip Magnus, Daily Telegraph 'A huge, scholarly and remarkably readable work which makes us revise vast tracts of our assumptions about nineteenth-century politics.' Sir Michael Howard, Sunday Times 'A book that people will still be reading in fifty years' time and long after.' Times Literary Supplement

Part of the Jewish Encounter series A dandy, a best-selling novelist, and a man of political and sexual intrigue, Benjamin Disraeli was one of the most captivating figures of the nineteenth century. His flirtation with proto-Zionism, his ideas about power and empire, and his fantasies about the Middle East remain prophetically relevant today. How a man who was born a Jew--and who remained in the eyes of his countrymen a member of a despised minority--managed to become prime minister of England seems even today nothing short of miraculous. In this compelling biography, renowned poet and critic Adam Kirsch looks at Disraeli as a novelist as well as a statesman, recognizing that the outsider Jew who became one of the world's most powerful men was his own greatest character. Though baptized by his father at the age of twelve, Disraeli was seen--and saw himself--as a Jew. But her created an idea of Jewishness to rival the British notion of aristocracy. Disraeli was a figure of fascinating contradictions: an archconservative who benefited from England's liberal attitudes, a baptized Christian who saw Jewishness as a matter of racial superiority, a perennial outsider who dreamed of glory for England, which, in the words of one contemporary, became for Disraeli "the Israel of his imagination."

Lauded as a “great Jew,” excoriated by antisemites, and one of Britain’s most renowned prime ministers, Benjamin Disraeli has been widely celebrated for his role in Jewish history. But is the perception of him as a Jewish hero accurate? In what ways did he contribute to Jewish causes? In this groundbreaking, lucid investigation of Disraeli’s life and accomplishments, David Cesarani draws a new portrait of one of Europe’s leading nineteenth-century statesmen, a complicated, driven, opportunistic man. While acknowledging that Disraeli never denied his Jewish lineage, boasted of Jewish achievements, and argued for Jewish civil rights while serving as MP, Cesarani challenges the assumption that Disraeli truly cared about Jewish issues. Instead, his driving personal ambition required him to confront his Jewishness at the same time as he acted opportunistically. By creating a myth of aristocratic Jewish origins for himself, and by arguing that Jews were a superior race, Disraeli boosted his own career but also contributed to the consolidation of some of the most fundamental stereotypes of modern antisemitism.

An account of Disraeli's personal and public lives which draws on his letters and his neglected early novels. It tells of his youth in Bloomsbury, and his novel "Vivian Grey" which catapulted him to precocious fame and infamy.

When we think of Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), one of two images inevitably first springs to mind: either Disraeli the two-time prime minister of Britain, or Disraeli the author of major novels such as Coningsby, Sybil, and Endymion. But were these two sides of his persona entirely separate? After all, the recurring fantasy structures in Disraeli’s fictions bear a striking similarity to the imaginative ways in which he shaped his political career. Disraeli: The Romance of Politics provides a remarkable biographical portrait of Disraeli as both a statesman and a storyteller. Drawing extensively on Disraeli’s published letters and speeches, as well as on archival sources in the United Kingdom, Robert O’Kell illuminates the intimate, symbiotic relationship between his fiction and his politics. His investigation shines new light on all of Disraeli’s novels, his two governments, his imperialism, and his handling of the Irish Church Disestablishment Crisis of 1868 and the Eastern Question in the 1870s.

Reprint of the original. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Disraeli is a key figure for students of nineteenth-century Britain. He is indelibly identified with the unmaking of Peel's version of the Conservative Party, and with the re-creation of a durable and outstandingly successful new party which retained the loyalty of the squires and the shires while reaching out to newer forms of property ownership and cultivating the attachment of a significant proportion of the urban working class. John K. Walton here examines the major aspects of Disraeli's career and his legacy, asking how far his actions and policies were governed by principles and how far by expediency. He also enquires how far Disraeli set his own agenda and how far he was a rider of currents out of his control. Finally, Walton takes a careful look at his political, institutional and ideological legacy.