Venetia is a minor novel by Benjamin Disraeli, published in 1837, the year he was first elected to the House of Commons.
The novel is a lightweight romantic fantasy. A contemporary reviewer, writing in an 1854 issue of the New Monthly Review, declared that he "liked it least of all Disraeli's works."
Lord Byron and Shelley figure in its pages, under different names and different worldly circumstances from those in which they actually lived. We do not consider either portrait well drawn, and that of Shelley especially defective; but still Venetia, like all that Disraeli has written, contains much that is vivid and beautiful, and will be read with interest and delight by every man of taste.
Michael Flavin's Benjamin Disraeli: The Novel as a Political Discourse suggests that Venetia was largely a commercial endeavour for Disraeli, who was deep in debt at the time that he wrote it.
In Byron and the Victorians, Andrew Elfenbein discusses Venetia in terms of Disraeli's presenting himself as "the moral, political and literary successor to Byron, by manipulating the representation of Byron's sexuality", making him straight instead of bisexual and portraying him as having steady but distant male friendships. He says the novel can best be described as "kooky" because of its confused and confusing portrayals of both Byron and Shelley, giving each traits and life circumstances actually possessed by the other. (wikipedia.org)
About the author:
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, DL, JP, FRS (21 December 1804 - 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the British Empire and military action to expand it, both of which were popular among British voters. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been born Jewish.
Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then a part of Middlesex. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. In 1846, Prime Minister Robert Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the House of Commons, becoming a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons.
Upon Derby's retirement in 1868, Disraeli became prime minister briefly before losing that year's general election. He returned to the Opposition before leading the party to a majority in the 1874 general election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria who, in 1876, elevated him to the peerage, as Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's second term was dominated by the Eastern Question-the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company in Egypt. In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy. This diplomatic victory established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen.
... (wikipedia.org)
