“THE MIRROR OF A KEEN AND RUTHLESS MIND”: COMPLETE SET OF FIRST EDITIONS OF ALL DISRAELI’S WORKS, 47 VOLUMES HANDSOMELY BOUND IN MOROCCO-GILT

DISRAELI, Benjamin. First editions of the complete works. London: Henry Colburn, et al., 1826-80. Forty-seven volumes. Octavo (varying sizes), early 20th-century three-quarter navy morocco gilt with tan morocco floral onlays on spines, raised bands, top edges gilt.

Splendid set of first editions of all of Disraeli’s major and most of his minor works, including his great trilogy, Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred, the autobiographical Endymion, his rare first novel Vivian Grey, as well as several scarce political speeches in original wrappers, 47 volumes handsomely and uniformly bound by Morrell.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli revealed, in his novels, “the same sagacious insight, the same insolent and satiric cleverness associated with his political career… their place in the growth of 19th-century thought was large” (Kunitz & Haycraft, 187). “From the moment of the anonymous but sensational appearance of Vivian Grey to that of the publication of Endymion which bore on each of its three volumes the name of the most distinguished statesman of the world, Disraeli held up alike to the follies and the ideals of his age the mirror of a keen and ruthless mind… [Using] personal experience as material for novel-writing… Disraeli described in the pages of Endymion the long road that he had traveled from obscurity to fame” (Sadleir, 107-08). Includes first editions of the novels Vivian Grey (1826-27, five volumes), The Young Duke (1831, three volumes), Contarini Fleming (1832, four volumes), The Tale of Alroy and The Rise of Iskander (1833, three volumes), Henrietta Temple (1837, three volumes), Venetia (1837, three volumes), Coningsby (1844, three volumes), Anti-Coningsby (1844, two volumes), Sybil (1845, three volumes), Tancred, or the New Crusade (1847, three volumes), Lothair (1870, three volumes), and Endymion (1880, three volumes). This set also includes his prose satire The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1828); his defense of Judaism, The Genius of Judaism (1833); his poetic eulogy on tyrannicide, The Revolutionary Epick (1834); his first important political writing, Vindication of the English Constitution (1835); The Letters of Runnymede (1836), and his verse drama, The Tragedy of Count Alarcos (1839); his political biography Lord George Bentinck (1852); and an anonymously published literary and political biography of Disraeli himself (1854). Housed in a pull-off case uniform with the rest of the set are five scarce pamphlets, each in original printed paper wrappers: “Young England,” printing several speeches by Disraeli and others (1845); a Speech given at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1872; another Speech to the Working Men’s Conservative Association in Glasgow in 1873; another Speech at the seventh anniversary of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest in Brompton, 1873; and “A Day with Disraeli,” from 1873. Sadleir, 113-122. Bookplate in each volume.

Pamphlets are very good or better in fragile original printed paper wrappers. A few volumes with original cloth bound in at rear; many are uncut. A very handsomely bound and complete set of scarce first editions, in fine condition.