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Product Description
Product Description
First published in 1966, Robert Blake's biography of Disraeli remains not only unchallenged but one of the supreme political biographies of the last one hundred years.
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 (1868 and from 1874 to 1880). 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. He was an outsider, a nationalist, a European, Romantic and Tory and, in Michael Foot's words 'He was without any rival whatever, the first comic genius who ever installed himself in Downing Street.'
To say Robert Blake does justice to all this and more merely hints at the scale of his achievement; the reviews speak more eloquently.
'One of the very great political biographies . . . ' John Vincent, Observer
' . . . This new book is by far the best. It is outstanding. Robert Blake is a great historian - sympathetic, exhaustive and with a light touch withal. He has not attacked; he has defended. He has portrayed, with delicacy and penetration, the most exciting and, in a curious way, the most modern of all Victorian statesmen. A great book.' Harold Macmillan
'An outstandingly successful biography . . . Disraeli has never been brought so vividly to life, and his consistent champagne-like sparkle, equalled only by that of Churchill, but unsurpassed by any statesman, invests these 800 colourful pages with a beguiling attribute of timelessness.' Sir Philip Magnus, Daily Telegraph
' . . . it is his emotional identification with his subject that makes this such a remarkable and sensitive work . . . a wholly satisfying biography.' Robert Rhodes James, Spectator
'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
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Disraeli was born into middle-class Italian Jewish stock. His father wrote books which collected literary sayings and was a respected figure. For much of his early life Disraeli was a dandy whose hero was Byron. He was a radical who gradually came to feel he belonged in the Tory party, but kicked against the conscientious positioning of Peel, seeking a more flamboyant image for himself. He was not afraid to lampoon and ridicule others and he had the gift of the gab, in speech and in the written word. His first published novel made him many enemies, and for several decades he seemed anxious to add to their number by the opportunist invective he employed to get his way in the House of Commons. However Disraeli had a real feel and appetite for parliament and hung on in there through two or three decades of tough times for the Tories, supporting his senior colleague the Earl of Derby all the way.
He wasn't far off 70 when he became premier and followed the Tory tradition in the Victorian era of passing radical legislation which for one reason or another the Whigs never managed to when he saw through the second Reform bill, allying his party with radical elements to outmanoevre Gladstone.
His rivalry, even according to Blake hatred for Gladstone was a feature of his later years and the combination of their rivalry and the widening suffrage saw in the kind of party politics and electioneering which we are so used to today, replacing the interminable wheeling and dealing in coffee-houses of bygone days.
Blake sees his halcyon days as his foreign policy in outflanking European rivals in managing Turkish-Russian opposition, and flair in managing distractions in Afghanistan and South Africa.
Another feature of this book is a considered view on his novels, his long and successful marriage and his close relationship with Queen Victoria, all of which put him in a sympathetic light.
This book is as good as Gash's biography of Peel; different man, different writer, but equally good.
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