"Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory."

July 5, 2006 7:38 PM

Apropos of the above, can anyone recommend an excellent Benjamin Disraeli biography?

Inspired by this fpp.

posted by oxford blue to writing & language (1 comment total)

I'm presuming that toting Monypenny & Buckle around is out of the question. So, for the political Dis, head to Robert Blake's Disraeli (the standard one-volume biography). The best biography of Disraeli qua person is probably still Sarah Bradford's Disraeli. I'd have to advise against Jane Ridley's Young Disraeli (both unfinished--it's supposed to be a multivolume biography--and unfriendly) and Stanley Weintraub's Disraeli (not a real advance on Bradford). I've not yet read Christopher Hibbert's biography. There are a number of shorter and mainly synthetic biographies out there--Richard W. Davis, Paul Smith, Edgar Feuchtwanger, etc.--but Blake and Bradford are really still the ones to beat. If you can find it, Helen & Marvin Swartz's edition of Disraeli's Reminiscences, which collects the extant fragments of Disraeli's unfinished memoirs, has some terrific anecdotes from the man himself.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:53 PM on July 5, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]