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Historical person

Benjamin Disraeli

1804–1881

Benjamin Disraeli was a British novelist and Conservative politician who twice served as prime minister and played a central role in reshaping nineteenth-century Conservatism. Born into a Jewish family in London in 1804, he was baptised into the Church of England as a child, a change that later allowed him to sit in Parliament before Jewish political disabilities were removed. After an erratic early career as a writer and political aspirant, he entered the Commons in 1837.

Disraeli became a leading critic of Sir Robert Peel after the repeal of the Corn Laws split the Conservatives in 1846. As chancellor of the exchequer and later party leader he helped rebuild the party, and in 1867 he carried a major Reform Act that expanded the urban electorate. His premiership of 1874–1880 was associated with social legislation, the purchase of Suez Canal shares, imperial policy and the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India. His rivalry with William Gladstone defined much of late Victorian parliamentary politics.

Saul David’s Hart of Empire uses Disraeli directly as prime minister, recruiting its fictional protagonist into an imperial mission. George MacDonald Fraser’s Flash for Freedom! places the younger politician within the turbulent nineteenth-century political world. Peter Ackroyd’s Dominion, James Vernon’s Modern Britain, 1750 to the Present, and Lawrence James’s Raj and The Rise and Fall of the British Empire treat Disraeli in the broader history of Victorian politics and empire.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Benjamin Disraeli (2 series)

The Flashman Papers in Order

by George MacDonald Fraser 12 books 4.2(80,547)

The Flashman Papers present the supposed memoirs of Sir Harry Paget Flashman, the bully expelled from Rugby School in Tom Brown’s School Days who becomes a decorated Victorian soldier despite being a coward, liar, opportunist and sexual predator. George MacDonald Fraser places this fictional witness inside documented nineteenth-century…

All books in this series

Zulu Hart in Order

by Saul David 3 books 4.3(384)

The George Hart novels follow a fictional soldier of mixed Irish and Zulu ancestry through the wars, politics and prejudices of the late Victorian Empire. George’s uncertain relationship with the British military establishment gives him access to power while his appearance and maternal heritage repeatedly expose the racism…

All books in this series

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Benjamin Disraeli (4 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.