Author: Disraeli, Benjamin
Biography:
DISRAELI, Benjamin (1804-1881: ODNB)
The future primer minster was born in London on 21 Dec. 1804, the son of a man of letters, Isaac D’Israeli (1766-1848), and his wife, Maria Basevi D’Israeli (1775-1847), of Bloomsbury Square. On 13 Nov. 1821, he was indentured for five years to William Stevens, a solicitor in Chancery. He entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1824. Disraeli and his siblings—their family was Jewish—were baptized into the Christian religion at St Andrew, Holborn: his brothers Raphael (1809-1898) and James (1813-1868) on 20 July 1817; Benjamin eleven days later; and his sister Sarah (1802-1859) on 28 Aug. His father was influenced in that decision by his solicitor Sharon Turner (q.v.). On 28 Aug. 1839, he married Mary Anne Evans (1792-1872) of Exeter, the wealthy widow of Disraeli’s colleague Wyndham Lewis, at the parish church, St George, Hanover Square. There were no children by the marriage. In 1824, he developed a business relationship with the London publisher John Murray that led to the creation of a daily newspaper, The Representative. In the following year, Murray turned against Disraeli and severed his long relationship with the D’Israeli family, possibly because he believed Disraeli had parodied him in the novel Vivian Grey (1824). A prolific writer, he published over a dozen novels, a book of poems in two versions, a tragedy, and several books of non-fiction. In Mar. 1834, Moxon published 50 copies of Disraeli’s only book of poetry, The Revolutionary Epick. When in 1864 Longman published a longer version of the poem, a reviewer declared it “not a literary event, for the poem has no literary value of any kind.” Disraeli’s political career commenced in 1837 when he was elected MP for Maidstone. It culminated in his premierships at the head of the Conservative Party in 1868 and 1874-81. In August 1876, he was gazetted Earl of Beaconsfield and 1st Viscount Hughenden of Hughenden. He thereupon entered the House of Lords. He died at 19 Curzon Street, Mayfair, on 19 Apr. 1881. (ODNB 5 Apr. 2023; ancestry.com 5 Apr. 2023) JC