BROADCASTS.com

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the major figures in Victorian British politics. Disraeli (1804 -1881) served both as Prime Minister twice and, for long periods, as leader of the opposition. Born a Jew, he was only permitted to enter Parliament as his father had him baptised into the Church of England when he was twelve. Disraeli was a gifted orator and, outside Parliament, he shared his views widely through several popular novels including Sybil or The Two Nations, which was to inspire the idea of One Nation Conservatism. He became close to Queen Victoria and she mourned his death with a primrose wreath, an event marked for years after by annual processions celebrating his life in politics.

With

Lawrence Goldman\nEmeritus Fellow in History at St Peter's College, University of Oxford

Emily Jones\nLecturer in Modern British History at the University of Manchester

And

Daisy Hay\nProfessor of English Literature and Life Writing at the University of Exeter

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Robert Blake, Disraeli (first published 1966; Faber & Faber, 2010)

M. Dent, \u2018Disraeli and the Bible\u2019 (Journal of Victorian Culture 29, 2024)

Benjamin Disraeli (ed. N. Shrimpton), Sybil; or, The Two Nations (Oxford University Press, 2017)

Daisy Hay, Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance (Chatto & Windus, 2015)

Douglas Hurd and Edward Young, Disraeli: or, The Two Lives (W&N, 2014)

Emily Jones, \u2018Impressions of Disraeli: Mythmaking and the History of One Nation Conservatism, 1881-1940\u2019 (French Journal of British Studies 28, 2023)

William Kuhn, The Politics of Pleasure: A Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli (Simon & Schuster, 2007)

Robert O'Kell, Disraeli: The Romance of Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2013)

J.P. Parry, \u2018Disraeli and England\u2019 (Historical Journal 43, 2000)

J.P. Parry, \u2018Disraeli, the East and Religion: Tancred in Context\u2019 (English Historical Review 132, 2017)

Cecil Roth, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York Philosophical library, 1952)

Paul Smith, Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform (Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC, 1967)

John Vincent, Disraeli (Oxford University Press, 1990)

P.J. Waller (ed.), Politics and Social Change in Modern Britain (Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1987), especially the chapter \u2018Style and Substance in Disraelian Social Reform\u2019 by P. Ghosh

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production