In addition to the portrait it paints of a fascinating man whose public life was as earnest and idealistic as his private life was shocking and titillating, Disraeli's Disciple also provides new insights into the politics of this formative stage in British history.

This is the first book to tell the story of on eof the most contentious figures in Victorian and Edwardian politics: that of the independent-minded and exceptionally able Conservative politician, Sir John Eldon Gorst.

When we think of Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), one of two images inevitably first springs to mind: either Disraeli the two-time prime minister of Britain, or Disraeli the author of major novels such as Coningsby, Sybil, and Endymion. But were these two sides of his persona entirely separate? After all, the recurring fantasy structures in Disraeli’s fictions bear a striking similarity to the imaginative ways in which he shaped his political career. Disraeli: The Romance of Politics provides a remarkable biographical portrait of Disraeli as both a statesman and a storyteller. Drawing extensively on Disraeli’s published letters and speeches, as well as on archival sources in the United Kingdom, Robert O’Kell illuminates the intimate, symbiotic relationship between his fiction and his politics. His investigation shines new light on all of Disraeli’s novels, his two governments, his imperialism, and his handling of the Irish Church Disestablishment Crisis of 1868 and the Eastern Question in the 1870s.

'Lively and entertaining... [ Disraeli's Grand Tour] concentrates on one colourful episode, or sequence of episodes, in the young Disraeli's life: the tour through the Mediterranean and Near East which he undertook with the man who was intended to become his brother-in-law. On the way they were joined by raffish Wykhamist James Clay, a friend of Disraeli's brother, and also by Tita Falcieri, who had formerly been a servant to Byron. Indeed... much of the tour might almost be considered a Byronic pilgrimage of a kind... Lord Blake suggests that [Disraeli's] travels in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire inclined him, when in office many years later, to take a more favourable attitude to Turkish power than was common among Englishmen of his time. However, the author is more interested in tracing the effects of the visit to the Holy Land on Disraeli's view of his own position as a Jew converted to Christianity and an aspirant man-of-letters and politician.' Dan Jacobson, London Review of Books

Lauded as a “great Jew,” excoriated by antisemites, and one of Britain’s most renowned prime ministers, Benjamin Disraeli has been widely celebrated for his role in Jewish history. But is the perception of him as a Jewish hero accurate? In what ways did he contribute to Jewish causes? In this groundbreaking, lucid investigation of Disraeli’s life and accomplishments, David Cesarani draws a new portrait of one of Europe’s leading nineteenth-century statesmen, a complicated, driven, opportunistic man. While acknowledging that Disraeli never denied his Jewish lineage, boasted of Jewish achievements, and argued for Jewish civil rights while serving as MP, Cesarani challenges the assumption that Disraeli truly cared about Jewish issues. Instead, his driving personal ambition required him to confront his Jewishness at the same time as he acted opportunistically. By creating a myth of aristocratic Jewish origins for himself, and by arguing that Jews were a superior race, Disraeli boosted his own career but also contributed to the consolidation of some of the most fundamental stereotypes of modern antisemitism.