Lothair (novel)
Author | Benjamin Disraeli |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Philosophical novel |
Publisher | Longmans, Green and Co. |
Publication date | 1870 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 982 pp |
Lothair (1870) was a late novel by
Synopsis
Lothair, a wealthy young orphaned Scottish nobleman (loosely based on
Critical and popular reception
Lothair was first published by Longmans, Green and Co. on 2 May 1870, in 3 volumes. This first edition of 2000 copies sold out in two days, and no less than seven more British editions were needed before the end of the year. In the United States, where it was published by Appleton, 25,000 copies were sold in the first three days. Lothair-mania, as his publisher called it, was epidemic.[5] A ship, a perfume, a galop, a waltz, a song and two racehorses were named after either Lothair himself or Lady Corisande. Bret Harte published a full-length parody called Lothaw: or, The Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion. By 1876 Disraeli had earned £7500 from the novel, but it had not been so beneficial to his political career.[6] Conservative politicians, it has been said, asked themselves awkward questions:
How could Parliamentarians be expected to trust an ex-Premier who, when half-way between sixty and seventy, instead of occupying his leisure, in accordance with the British convention, in classical, historical, or constitutional studies, produced a gaudy romance of the peerage, so written as to make it almost impossible to say how much was ironical or satirical, and how much soberly intended?…[It] revived all the former doubts as to whether a Jewish literary man, so dowered with imagination, and so unconventional in his outlook, was the proper person to lead a Conservative party to victory.[7]
Lothair-mania was less noticeable among the critics, some of whom had political differences with the author. Among the most unkind was the notice in Macmillan's Magazine, which declared that "A single conscientious perusal (without skipping) of Lothair would be a creditable feat: few will voluntarily attempt a second."[8] The Quarterly Review largely agreed, calling Disraeli's production:
A book which he calls a novel, but which is after all a political pamphlet, and a bid for the bigoted voices of Exeter Hall… It sins alike against good taste and justice…That there are happy thoughts and epigrammatic sentences sown broadcast in its pages need scarcely be said of a novel written by Mr. Disraeli. But as the true pearl lies embedded in the loose fibre of a mollusc, so Mr. Disraeli's gems of speech and thought are hidden in a vast maze of verbiage which can seldom be called English, and very frequently is downright nonsense…So far as feeling is concerned Lothair is as dull as ditch-water and as flat as a flounder.[9]
The Conservative
After Disraeli's death the praise came more plentifully.
British editions succeeded each other at short intervals up to the 1920s, but for the last 80 years Lothair has been reprinted less often than Sybil or Coningsby. A recent critic has noted that "It is largely unread today except by dedicated literary biographers." Oxford University Press included it in their Oxford English Novels series in 1975, in an edition by Vernon Bogdanor.[12]
Notes
- ^ Diana Moore, "Romances of No-Popery: Transnational Anti-Catholicism in Giuseppe Garibaldi's The Rule of the Monk and Benjamin Disraeli's Lothair." Catholic Historical Review 106.3 (2020): 399-420 online.
- ^ M. C. Rintoul Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 32.
- ^ M. C. Rintoul Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (London: Routledge, 1993) p. 32.
- ^ Westminster Diocesan Archive: Letter Regarding Political Issues 2 May 1870, John Cashiel Hoey: Ma.2/25/22
- ^ Margaret Drabble (ed.) The Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) p. 610; W. F. Monypenny and George Earle Buckle The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London: Macmillan, 1912–22) vol. 5, p. 167.
- ^ Ian St. John Disraeli and the Art of Victorian Politics (London: Anthem Press, 2005) p. 130; Philip Guedalla Idylls of the Queen (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937) p. 202.
- ^ W. F. Monypenny and George Earle Buckle The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London: Macmillan, 1912–22) vol. 5, pp. 169–70, 172.
- ^ R. W. Stewart (ed.) Disraeli's Novels Reviewed, 1826–1968 (Metuchen, N. J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975) p. 263.
- ^ R. W. Stewart (ed.) Disraeli's Novels Reviewed, 1826–1968 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975) pp. 268–69.
- ^ W. F. Monypenny and George Earle Buckle The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London: Macmillan, 1912–22) vol. 5, p. 167.
- The Cornhill Magazinevol. 95 (1907) p. 41; Sir Leslie Stephen Hours in a Library (London: Smith, Elder/Duckworth, 1907) vol. 2, p. 333; W. F. Monypenny and George Earle Buckle The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London: Macmillan, 1912–22) vol. 5, p. 169.
- ^ Albert D. Pionke Plots of Opportunity: Representing Conspiracy in Victorian England (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004) p. 121; Catalogue entry at Copac.