Disraeli’s Political Novels
At the age of twenty-one, in 1826, Disraeli published his first novel, Vivian Grey. Robert Blake describes the long career that lay before him, in which romantic politics and political romances were brilliantly blended.
Disraeli may be said to have invented the political novel, if we use “political” in the usual English sense of referring to parliamentary politics. For this reason alone he would have a place in history, though not such a distinguished one, even if he had never been a minister or the leader of his party. It is true that “political” applies only to a minority of his novels. Coningsby and Sybil indubitably belong to this category.
So does Endymion, and perhaps the first part of Vivian Grey. Tancred is often described as a political novel, but in reality, like Lothair, it is about religion rather than politics, although it has political implications. The remainder of his novels, excluding the unfinished Falconet which was certainly political, were either “silverfork” romances like The Young Duke and Henrietta Temple, or quasi-historical novels such as Alroy and Venetia.
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