AustLit

'This story is about Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Lord Beaconsfield, author and statesman. For many years one of the most powerful political leaders in the world, Disraeli’s most spectacular coup was in 1876, when he anticipated the French government by purchasing, on his own responsibility and at a moment’s notice, all the shares in the Suez Canal owned by the Khedive of Egypt, thus assuring his country a controlling interest in the world’s most important waterway. Disraeli was a close friend and constant counsellor of Queen Victoria, who his advise assumed the title of Empress of India. Dying in 1881, he is buried in Westminster Abbey. Lady Beaconsfield married Disraeli in the death of her first husband, Wyndham Lewis, a prominent figure in the House of Commons. They met at the house of Edward Bulwer, afterwards Lord Lytton, author and politician. His novels, the most famous of which is ‘The Last Days of Pompeii,’ are better known today than those of Disraeli. For many years he was a Member of the British Cabinet. His marriage to Rosina Wheeler was unhappy, and terminated in a legal separation in 1836.' (25)