ESC: English Studies in Canada

Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1815-1835, ed. J. A. W. Gunn, Donald M. Schurman , and M. G. Wiebe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). xlviii, 482. $50.00 Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-183J, ed. J. A. W. Gunn, Donald M. Schurman , and M. G. Wiebe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), xliii, 458. $50.00 Disraeli was often regarded as something of an enigma by his contempo­ raries. In his youth his flamboyant wardrobe and his affected airs were cause of amusement to some and of disgust to many. He did not attempt to disarm criticism of his dandyism until the late 1840s, and even then he persisted in wearing his hair in ringlets. But the suspicion that Disraeli was untrust­ worthy was based not just on his appearance, but on his alleged political tergiversations. When he was trying to get nominated as a Radical for High Wycombe, he collaborated in an anti-Whig publication which, although decidedly Tory in tone, contained nothing that could be interpreted as critical of the cause of Reform. He courted the favour of the high Tory Lord Lyndhurst (who had the reputation of being a notorious womanizer) but he also looked to the Whig Lord Durham (whose radical leanings caused him to be known as “Radical Jack” ) for patronage and advancement. When he was eventually elected as a member for Maidstone, his Tory Radical stance puzzled everyone. To promote his peculiar vision of Toryism, he founded the Young England party; but that he was suspected of being insin­ cere even by those within this group is evident in an entry his colleague Lord John Manners made in his journal on 28 August 1843: “Could I only satisfy myself that Disraeli believed all that he said, I should be more happy: his historical views are quite mine, but then does he believe them?” 1 Disraeli’s often extraordinary pronouncements were described by Leslie Stephen as “ambiguous hovering between two meanings. . . . the ironical and the serious.”2 Leslie Stephen must be numbered among the very few who were capable of this kind of perceptive comment. To most, Disraeli remained fascinating but suspect, partly because of his Jewish origins, partly because he was never really of the establishment, and partly because his fertile and originating mind was bound to cause misunderstanding and resentment. The more extreme reaction is found in Rosina Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Very Successful (1856), where Disraeli is satirized as Mr. Jericho Jabber, the “Jew d’Esprit” ; a more moderate reaction is evident in the article Frederick Greenwood wrote for the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in which he professes to be puzzled by Disraeli’s “mental characteristics.”3 It scarcely needs to be pointed out that the letters of such a complex and contradictory personality are invaluable if one is to reach sane and balanced 370 conclusions. Until the Disraeli Project at Queen’s University undertook the enormous task of editing the estimated 10,000 extant Disraeli letters, scholars who had neither the time nor the financial backing to track down the originals had to be content with the published collections of his correspon­ dence. In one way or another, they are all unsatisfactory. The earlier letters were edited by Disraeli’s brother Ralph, who not only demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to amend or to expurgate anything he considered unflattering to the family name, but also conflated paragraphs and sentences from letters without scruple as to context or to dating.4 How far Ralph’s bowdlerizing could be carried is amusingly illustrated in his substitution of “fib” for “lie” in a letter Disraeli wrote to his father on 14 July 1830.5 Prudish emendations such as this do not of course alter the essential mean­ ing. But that Ralph went to extraordinary lengths to suppress whatever could be construed as faintly scandalous is evident in the surgery he per­ formed on letters Disraeli wrote to his sister Sarah in late May and early June of 1833.6 Disraeli’s family hoped that if he married well he might further his worldly ambitions, but when there was some suggestion that he had his eye on Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie, Sarah became alarmed because of...