Mr and Mrs Disraeli

A Strange Romance

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Summary

He was a debt-ridden dandy, a mid-ranking novelist armed with enormous political ambition.

She was a moneyed widow twelve years older than her new husband, always overdressed for society dinners and never one to hold her tongue.

From the outset, Mary Anne and Benjamin Disraeli made an unlikely match, yet they rose to the very pinnacle of Victorian society.

Drawing on the couple's love letters and Mary Anne's own formidable archives, Daisy Hay reveals the heady mix of romance and power that fuelled their influence - and chronicles how the Disraelis crafted their unconventional marriage into an enduring love story.

Reviews

A tour de force, written with intelligence and compassion
The Times

About the author

Daisy Hay

Daisy Hay is an award-winning biographer whose previous work includes Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives and Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance. She began her writing career as a doctoral student and then a Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge before moving to Oxford where she held the Alistair Horne Fellowship at St Antony's College and a Visiting Scholarship at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College. She has also held a Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard. In 2016 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize by the Leverhulme Trust and in 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is currently Associate Professor in English Literature and Life Writing at the University of Exeter and lives in Devon with her family.

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