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The private letters of a statesman are always inviting material for
historians and when he has claim to literary fame as well the
correspondence assumes a double significance. Benjamin Disraeli
(1804-1881) belonged to an age that gave pride of place to the
written word as an instrument of both business and pleasure. This
volume includes 363 letters (many previously unpublished) from his
school boy days to his establishment in the Tory camp under the
patronage of Lord Lyndhurst. Most prominent are Disraeli's letters
to his sister, Sarah, with whom he corresponded frequently over
several decades. To her he confided his hopes, interspersed with
his observations and descriptions of social, literary and political
events. The letters to Sarah supply a skeleton around which
Disraeli's young manhood can be reconstructed and shed valuable
light on the remaining documents in the volume. The correspondence
also includes accounts of his tour of the Low Countries and the
Rhine in 1824, his adventurous trip to Spain, Greece, the Near East
and Egypt in 1830, his tense negotiations with publishers and his
campaign to shine as a member of aristocratic society and win
political patronage. The letters demonstrate the fine eye for
detail and the capacity for self-dramatization and literary
conceits which mark his novels. With their annotations they also
provide a remarkably detailed account of life in the upper reaches
of English society as viewed from below, and of Disraeli's
ambitions to enter that life.
The 334 letters in this volume cover the period from Disraeli's
establishment in the Tory camp under the patronage of Lord
Lyndhurst to his election to parliament in 1837. The most important
issue to which they speak is the course of Disraeli's political
ambitions. In 1835 the road to parliament was not yet clear, for he
continued to be haunted by troubles from his past. He was beset by
charges of opportunism in his Taunton campaign of 1835, and the
longest letters here are those to Edwards Beadon written in
justification of past conduct; Disraeli had still to learn the
truth of his later dictum, 'never explain.' Also, debts contracted
many years before continued to plague him, as they would in years
to come. He was tempted by a variety of money-making schemes and
the later correspondence makes clear just how close he came to
permanent ruin at the hands of his creditors in the spring of 1837.
Had the fate of debtors' prison materialized it is doubtful that he
would ever have been eligible, in law or in reputation, for a
parliamentary career. Disraeli's eventual election for Maidstone in
the summer of 1837 marked the emergence of his formal public role.
Because he set out early and was a long time in attaining his
goals, one is tempted to laud his patience. But the record here
suggests that it was instead a matter of energy and endurance. This
volume of the Letters brings Disraeli to the threshold of the
Victorian era and the beginning of his career as a politician. In
late 1837 he failed in his maiden speech, but all major successes
lay ahead.
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1922 Edition.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
Additional Authors Include Orus M. Mooney, James M. Harris And
Holland Patterson. Little Blue Book No. 1590.
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