Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1857–1859

Alexander Craig is a freelance journalist in Lennoxville, Quebec.

This is an intensely scholarly book. That means, among other things,
immense diligence and vast detail. Volume 7 of the Disraeli Project of
Queen’s University, as the acknowledgments attest, is a labour of
love, and years, for many devoted historians and archivists.

Disraeli is best known to us as the “one-nation” Tory British prime
minister, the first Jew in the position. He was a long-time rival of his
political opponent, the Liberal William Gladstone, and much more a
favourite of Queen Victoria because of his outgoing personality. The
letters in this volume, formal and informal, are addressed to a set of
correspondents ranging from Queen Victoria to many of her more humble
subjects (recipients are listed in three and a half small-print pages.)
The long and detailed introduction is helpful in giving some essential
background on all these people and their times, as are the huge numbers
of footnotes, which at times take up as much space on the page as the
letters themselves.

And how different were the times? The Indian Mutiny broke out in 1857
(while the London government was having to deal with
“Ultra-Protestantism” and the Irish question). Lord Elgin had been
sent to China for a treaty to end “the war between England and Persia,
the latter relinquishing claims on Afghanistan … and ratified in
Baghdad.” Disraeli and Queen Victoria were both suspicious of some of
the stories of atrocities by the other side.

There’s a lot of fascinating detail here, and the index even has a
few references to Canada.