Disraeli: The Novel Politician

304 Pages·2016·1.87 MB·English

by  David Cesarani

disraeli

Disraeli
The Novel Politician
DAVID CESARANI
New Haven and London
Frontispiece: Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, by or after Daniel Maclise,
circa 1833. © National Portrait Gallery, London
Copyright © 2016 by David Cesarani.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953578
ISBN: 978-0-300-13751-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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contents
Acknowledgments, vii
Introduction, 1
Part One. Becoming Disraeli, 1804–1837, 7
Part Two. Being Dizzy, 1837–1859, 83
Part Three. The Old Jew, 1859–1881, 159
Conclusion: The Last Court Jew, 225
Notes, 237
Index, 283
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acknowledgments
I would like to thank Anita Shapira and Steve Zipper-
stein, the editors of this series, who commissioned the book
and whose comments made it better than it would otherwise
have been. I owe a double debt to Todd Endelman. His schol-
arship paves the way for anyone interested in Disraeli’s Jew-
ishness and his Anglo-Jewish milieu, but he also read the man-
uscript and made numerous valuable observations. I want to
express my heartfelt appreciation to the staff of the London
Library and to all those who keep that remarkable institution
in rude health. At a time when university libraries have become
“information centres,” when even the British Library (where
Isaac D’Israeli spent much of his time) resembles a glorified
internet café, the London Library stands out as a haven for
scholarship and contemplation. At that institution, which was
founded during Disraeli’s lifetime and is associated with many
who knew him, I found it possible to locate on its shelves al-
acknowledgments
most everything necessary for my research, while the building,
like Hughendon Manor, exudes an aura that helps one connect
with the world he knew. I would also like to thank Ileene Smith
and Erica Hanson at Yale University Press and Lawrence Ken-
ney for his excellent editorial work on the manuscript.
viii
Introduction
Does Benjamin Disraeli deserve a place in a series of
books called Jewish Lives? It would certainly be possible to
construct one narrative of his life that piled up evidence of his
attachment to the people from whom he sprang. Although his
story was so extraordinary—so like the plot of one of his own
novels as to be sui generis—many Jewish writers did just this
after his death and celebrated him as a representative Jew.
Many anti-Semites did the same, though of course for different
reasons.
This version stresses the fact that he was born a Jew and
raised as one until he was thirteen years old, when he was bap-
tised on the instructions of his father. Although he thereafter
identified himself religiously as a member of the Church of
En gland, he never denied his origins and never changed his
name, which advertised his ties to both his family and his peo-
ple. Moreover, he made a perilous trip to Jerusalem in his youth
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