Further Reading
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Further Reading Unless otherwise stated, the place of original publication is London. 1 WELLINGTON AND PEEL 1831-1846 Elizabeth Longford, Wellington, 2 vols (1969; 1972). H. Maxwell, Life of Wellington, 2 vols (1899). G. S. R. Kitson Clark, Peel and the Conservative Party (1929). R. L. Hill, Toryism and the People 18]2-1846 (1929). N. Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel (1953). ---, Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics 1832-52 (1965). ---, Mr Secretary Peel (1961). ---, Sir Robert Peel (1972). 2 DERBY AND DISRAELI The 14th Earl of Derby has attracted few biographers. George Saints bury's The Earl of Derby (1892) was written from the point of view of a Tory 'who would, at the respective times and in the respective circumstances, have opposed Catho lic Emancipation, Reform, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and the whole Irish Legislation of Mr Gladstone'. T. E. Kebbel's Life of the Earl of Derby (1890) shared much the same attitude. Lord Derby and Victorian Conservatism (Oxford, 1956) by Wilbur Devereux Jones added much information but continued to rely on papers other than Derby's. A new biography, using Derby's papers, is promised by Lord Blake. Robert Stewart's The Politics of Protection (Cambridge, 1971), dealing with the period up to 1852, is largely based on the Derby MSS. Disraelian literature is vast, and it is impossible here to mention more than a personal selection of volumes. However, Robert Blake's Disraeli (1966; 1969) contains a useful list of Disraeli's own publications and a select bibliography. Lord Blake's sympathetic study, based on modern research, is invaluable. But it does not replace the monumental 'official' biography by W. F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 6 vols (1910-20); this, despite selective (and sometimes sensitive) omissions, gives the best series of extracts from Disraeli's correspondence, now preserved by the National Trust at Hughenden Manor. Contemporaries' biographies of Disraeli still deserve consideration, not least because they indicate the variety of views held about their subject. The Times's cautious evaluation (on 20 April 1881) of 'one of the most extraordinary careers recorded in our political annals' is reprinted in Eminent Persons, Vol. II (1893). T. P. O'Connor's vicious Lord Beaconsfield, A Biography originally preceded Disraeli's death and reached an eighth edition (1905). J. A. Froude's works, The Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G. (1890; 1906) and The Life of the Earl of Beacons field (Everyman edn, 1914) were more perceptive in some respects than might C.L.-9 248 THE CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP 1832-1932 have been expected from an academic anti-semite. Sir William Fraser's Disraeli and His Day (1891) is the product of an occasional M.P. and, as Buckle noted, 'enshrines, if it sometimes mangles, many of the best stories about its hero'. T. E. Kebbel's Life of Lord Beaconsfield (1888) and Lord Beaconsfield and other Tory Memories (1907) are also informative books by a committed Tory who knew Disraeli. A. C. Ewing's The Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G., and his Times 2 vols (1882) was a fulsome hagiography, issued in five blue and gold covered parts to adorn Primrose Leaguers' libraries. Georg Brandes's, Lord Beaconsfield: A Study, trans. Mrs George Sturge (1880) was an interesting attempt by a foreigner 'to apply a literary-critical method' by studying 'the statesman Lord Beaconsfield through the novelist Benjamin Disraeli'; at Berlin in 1878 'almost against his will, a feeling of sympathy took possession of [Brandes's] mind'. Inevitably, his own writings are essential reading in any study of Disraeli. The novels have been issued quite often and commentaries on them have regularly appeared. Arguably the most important novels, Coningsby, or The New Generation and Sybil, or The Two Nations, have been republished with sympathetic introductions respectively by Walter Allen (1948) and Walter Sichel (1950). Walter Sichel also wrote the still fascinating Disraeli, a Study in Personality and Ideas (1904). Collections of the novels have been published in 1881 (Longmans, II vols.), 1904-5 (M. W. Dunne, 20 vols.), 1905-6 (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 9 vols.), 1926-7 (Peter Davies, 12 vols.) and 1927-8 (John Lane, The Bodley Head, II vols.). Critical evalua tions include M. E. Speare, The Political Novel: Its Development in England and in America (New York, 1924); R. E. G. George, 'The Novels of Disraeli', Nineteenth Century, XCVI (1924); M. Masefield, Peacocks and Primroses (1953); Lord David Cecil, Early Victorian Novelists (1934); S. M. Smith, 'Willenhall and Woodgate: Disraeli's Use of Blue Book Evidence', Review of English Studies, n.s. XIII (1962); Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, 1780-1950 (1958; paperback 1961); Boris Ford (ed.) From Dickens to Hardy (1958) and Robert Blake, 'Disraeli's Political Novels', History Today, XVI (1966). Disraeli's letters to various ladies have been published and constitute an important part of his autobiographical evidence. Correspondence with his devoted sister Sarah has been issued several times and is most conveniently collected in Home Letters by Lord Beaconsfield, 1830-1852, with an introduction by Augustine Birrell (1928). Equally fascinating are the collections in the Marquess of Zetland (ed.) The Letters of Disraeli to Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield, 2 vols (1929) and the Marchioness of Londonderry (ed.) Letters from Benjamin Disraeli to Frances Anne, Marchioness of Londonderry, 1837-1861 (1938), which illustrate Disraeli's curious relationships with titled ladies, in additon to providing insights on his political attitudes. Some of Disraeli's major political writings and various journalistic pieces (not all provably by Disraeli) are included in Walter Hutcheon (ed.) Whigs and Whiggism: Political Writings by Benjamin Disraeli (1913). The major collection of speeches is T. E. Kebbel (ed.) Selected Speeches of the late Earl of Beaconsfield, 2 vols (1882). Many 'popular' biographies have been published, including E. T. Raymond's gossipy Disraeli: The Alien Patriot (1925); D. C. Somervell's Disraeli and Gladstone (1925); and Andre Maurois' Disraeli (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1927; Penguin 1937; Blackie, 1947). Wilfrid Meynell's The Man Disraeli (1927 edn), R. W. Setson-Watson's Disraeli, Gladstone and the Eastern Question (1935) and Sir Harold Beeley's Disraeli (1936) remain useful. Disraeli's continuing appeal to the Right is illustrated in many publications of and about the Con servative Party. H. W. J. Edwards's The Radical Tory, with an introduction by G. M. Young (1937) consists mainly of a useful collection of Disraelian extracts and an editorial clarion call for Tory-Radical reaction to modem 'Whiggism'. A FURTHER READING 249 champion of British agriculture, Sir R. George Stapledon, developed a Disraelian interest 'but of yesterday' before writing Disraeli and the New Age (1943). Sir Edward Boyle (ed.) Tory Democrat (1950) reprints the great speeches of 1872 and includes Walter Elliot's assertion that Disraeli's 'approach is his own. His problems are ours'. This was published by the Conservative Political Centre. A similar attitude pervades another C.P.C. publication, Tradition and Change (1954), a collection of essays by such distinguished Tories as Lord Butler, T. E. Utley, Enoch Powell, lain Macleod and Angus Maude. New insights are provided in Cecil Roth's Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beacons field (New York, 1952) on Disraeli's Judaic Christianity, and in B. R. Jerman's The Young Disraeli (Princeton, 1960) on youthful embarrassments. The later hostility to Disraeli's leadership and his interest in party organisation are treated from different viewpoints in E. J. Feuchtwanger's Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party (Oxford, 1968) and 'The Conservative Party under the Impact of the Second Reform Act', Victorian Studies, II (1959), in James Cornford's, 'The Transformation of Conservatism in the Late Nineteenth Century', ibid. VII (1963), and in Paul Smith's Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform (London and Toronto, 1967) - which is less sympathetic. There is an extensive and controversial literature on the 1867 Reform Act. Asa Briggs's The Age of Improvement (1969 impr.) provides a balanced, general survey. F. H. Herrick's 'The Reform Bill of 1867 and the British Party System', Pacific Historical Review, III (1934) and 'The Second Reform Movement in Britain, 1850-1865' Journal of the History of Ideas, IX (1948) provide sensible antidotes to partisan accounts. Royden Harrison's 'The 10th April of Spencer Walpole', International Review of Social History, VII (1963), reprinted in R. Harrison, Before the Socialists (1965), is a less convincing survey, written from a socialist viewpoint. F. B. Smith's' "Democracy" in the Second Reform Debates', Historical Studies, Australia and New Zealand, XI (1964) and The Making of the Second Reform Bill (Cambridge, 1966) are valuable on details, but should be balanced by Maurice Cowling'S 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution (Cambridge, 1967) - a vital Tory analysis - and Gertrude Himmel farb's 'The Politics of Democracy: The English Reform Act of 1867', Journal of British Studies, VI (1966) largely reprinted in G. Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds (1968). A subsequent discussion between Mr Smith and Miss Himmelfarb was published in Journal of British Studies, IX (1969). Robert Blake's The Conserva tive Party from Peel to Churchill (1970) draws many modern parallels with past events. 3 THE SALISBURY ERA 1881-1902 A. L. Kennedy's Salisbury: Portrait of a Statesman (1953) remains the only rounded biography. Algernon Cecil's study of his uncle in Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers (1953) is a model essay. Lady Gwendolen Cecil's privately printed Biographical Studies of the Life and Political Character of Robert, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury is the acknowledged basis of the valuable sketch in the early pages of J.