Table Of ContentROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:
THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL
Volume 3
DISRAELI THE NOVELIST
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DISRAELI THE NOVELIST
THOM BRAUN
RO Routledge
UTLEDG Taylor & Francis Group
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
Firstpublishedin1981byGeorgeAllen&Unwin
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Disraeli the Novelist
THOM BRAUN
London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN
Boston Sydney
First published in 1981
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights
are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of
private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under
the Copyright Act, 1956, no part of this publication may be
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should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN L TO
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© George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, 1981
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Braun, Thorn
Disraeli the novelist.
I. Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Criticism and interpretation
I. Title
823' .8 PR4087
ISBN 0-04-809017-4
Set in 10 on 11 point Times by Red Lion Setters, London
and printed in Great Britain
by Biddies Ltd. Guildford, Surrey.
Contents
Preface page vi
Acknowledgements
Vll
1 Dance on a Tight-Rope 1
2 Sleight-of-Hand Tricks 19
3 Rivers of Diamonds 37
4 Fortune and Fancy 55
5 Animal Magnetism, or Unknown Tongues 73
6 Inhabitants of Different Planets 91
7 Spells of Social Sorcery 111
8 The Frame of Age 129
Index 147
Preface
Disraeli will always be remembered as a politician rather than as a
novelist. That is as it should be. This book, while keeping that political
career firmly in mind, is an attempt to approach a better understanding
of Disraeli the man through his life as a novelist. It is a book about a
career which was dependent, in several senses, on a fictional view of
life, and which exhibits all the anecdotal liveliness and psychological
interest which we always associate with Disraeli's role as a statesman.
I have therefore structured the book as the story of a life, although
the scope of past studies (notably those eminent biographies by
Monypenny and Buckle and, more recently, Robert Blake) has meant
that I have not felt the need to give more than an outline of those events
which did not directly affect Disraeli's career as a novelist. By
concentrating on his development as a writer of fiction I have
necessarily spent more time discussing his early life than I have on
those years when he was a leading politician.
As I have suggested, the book is about Disraeli as a novelist, rather
than about his novels. Many of those works are out of print and have
been for some time, and it has not been my aim to write a purely
literary study of novels which are not easily available and which, in any
case, are seldom read. My emphasis is rather on Disraeli's career as a
novelist; how it began, what shape it took and how it relates to his
political career. While I have, of course, discussed all his novels in one
way or another, I have tried to deal with limited aspects of them which,
I hope, reflect on his life at those particular stages. My aim has been to
write a book which will be readable and of interest both to Disraeli
scholars and also to people who have read only one or two of his
novels. I have tried, however, not to indulge in the kind of plot
summaries which often feature in studies about little-known books.
Literary criticism is certainly an important part of my argument but,
with one exception, I have tried to balance such passages with
biographical matter. The one exception is Chapter 6 which is a literary
discussion of the panorama and personages in Sybil. Such a chapter,
while, I hope, adding to our appreciation of the way the author saw his
world, seems justifiable within the terms of this book because Sybil is,
at the present time, available as a paperback, and is probably the most
widely known of Disraeli's novels.
A book of this kind, which tries to balance Disraeli's life against his
novels, is bound to discriminate. Certain of his writings are included in
my survey because, although not novels, I feel that they contribute to
an understanding of his fictional process: his early mining pamphlets,
the Vindication, The Revolutionary Epick and Lord George Bentinck.
Preface vii
Other recognised writings by him are excluded because I feel that they
do not contribute much to such an understanding: The Tragedy of
Count Alarcos, Ixion in Heaven and the Rise of lskander.
With a few exceptions Disraeli's novels are more important for what
they tell us about their author than they are as works of art in their own
right. 'Fiction' and 'fictionalising' formed an important part of his
life, and this book is an attempt to explore that side of his nature.
THOM BRAUN
October 1980
