I Read Books: Sibyl, Or The Two Nations
Sibyl, or The Two Nations
Benjamin Disraeli’s novel about the working class of Britain and how it has been failed by the upper classes (these two classes, having been estranged, are the two nations of the title). Sibyl herself is the daughter of Walter Gerard, a Chartist organiser, as well as having a firm commitment to practical social aid and religious principle. As the novel advances through its somewhat pointed scenes, Charles Egremont, budding politician and younger son of a lord, falls in love with her. Thanks to the plundering of the nation by the upper classes and the unrest that follows they can’t be together.
There’s a lot of political plotting in which many of the upper class characters make comfortable arrangements for a new government and then it all falls through, which is amusing and probably more so at the time. There’s a lot of talk of ancient lineages, and how tenuous they are. One character, a baronet, makes a detailed case for the ancient privileges of baronets, involving parades, dress codes and so forth and claims that recognising them would solve the country’s problems. The lawyer he employs can’t help, but does think he might be able to get him a better title at which he abandons his plan to improve Britain through the united efforts of baronets.
In the end Sibyl and Egremont manage to work through their differences, symbolically uniting the two nations into one nation. In later life Disraeli did his best to do the same, though less symbolically, in his political career which espoused One Nation Toryism. How well did he succeed? That’s probably outside the remit of this book review.
Read This: A state of England novel bound up in the creation
of the idea of being a One Nation Tory
Don’t Read This: It’s not subtle with its political points,
many of which are simply obscure to the modern reader, and though there are
some good character moments much of the social stuff is stylised even for the
1840s
Published in 1845: It is out of copyright and can be found on the internet.