ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to approach a better understanding of Benjamin Disraeli the man through his life as a novelist. The fact that Vivian Grey could still be held, albeit wittily, against Disraeli when he was Prime Minister, says a lot for the feelings that the novel engendered when it was published more than forty years before. With his health still a cause for concern, Disraeli was soon to have the chance to acquire some real and local physical exercise. Isaac D'Israeli forsook his corner of Bloomsbury, and the family moved out to a house a few miles from High Wycombe. By the autumn of 1829 Disraeli's health was returning, and with a new lease of life his imagination again darted off into the realms of fantasy and adventure. This time it was the mystic East which fascinated him, and, as was often the case, the infatuation found expression in both literature and action.
