Benjamin Disraeli
1804–1881
Biography
Benjamin Disraeli, later Earl of Beaconsfield, was a British Conservative politician and novelist who twice served as prime minister, in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880. He was born in London to a family of Jewish origin. His father left Judaism after a quarrel at his synagogue, and Benjamin was baptised into the Church of England as a boy. He entered the House of Commons in 1837 after several failed attempts. He rose to prominence when Robert Peel split the Conservatives over the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and he later served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby.
Disraeli wrote novels from 1826 onward and went on writing them throughout his political career. The Young England trilogy, made up of Coningsby, Sybil and Tancred, uses fiction to press the case for a conservatism that felt a duty towards the poor. His second ministry was dominated by foreign affairs, including the purchase of a major stake in the Suez Canal Company and the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which he regarded as a success for Britain. Queen Victoria was a close friend of his, and she made him Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876.
Henrietta Temple, first published in 1837, is on this site. It is an early novel in which a love story is set among the fashionable society of London, and money and social position stand in the way of the lovers. Read alongside his later books, it shows the blend of romance and social observation that marked his fiction from the start.
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Books
Henrietta Temple: A Love Story
by Benjamin Disraeli
Henrietta Temple, the daughter of a gentleman, and the young Ferdinand Armine, burdened with debt, fall in love. Benjamin Disraeli's 1837 romance of passion and money.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.