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Cover

Sybil

or The Two Nations

Second Edition

Benjamin Disraeli
Edited by Nicholas Shrimpton

09 February 2017

ISBN: 9780198759898

464 pages
Paperback
196x129mm

In Stock

Oxford World's Classics

Price: £10.99

Disraeli vividly depicts the appalling conditions of the poor-their pitiful wages, their miserably overcrowded tenements, and their exploitation by the new breed of powerful industrialists-as an indirect plea for social and political reform and for the fulfilment of his dream of a new, more democratic England.

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Description

Disraeli vividly depicts the appalling conditions of the poor-their pitiful wages, their miserably overcrowded tenements, and their exploitation by the new breed of powerful industrialists-as an indirect plea for social and political reform and for the fulfilment of his dream of a new, more democratic England.

  • A new edition of one of the first modern political novels
  • No previous edition of Sybil has been so fully annotated with the notes providing a thorough explanation of the distinctively Tory view of English history which Disraeli opposed to the increasingly dominant 'Whig History' of the period
  • The Chronology which offers an unprecedentedly full summary of Disraeli's twin careers as author and politician
  • The Note on the Text which gives a complete account of the process of composition and publication
  • The Text, is that of the first edition of 1845, not the revised version which later became customary
  • The Introduction gives a new and distinctive reading of the political symbolism of the novel. This stresses its roots in the polemical medievalism of the 1840s, while suggesting that the radical Northern Tories of the 'Ten Hours' movement (such as W. B. Ferrand) were more important to Disraeli by 1845 than the 'Young England' group with which Sybil is usually associated
  • The Introduction also makes the case for the interest of Sybil as a work of art, as well as an historical and political document

About the Author(s)

Benjamin Disraeli

Edited by Nicholas Shrimpton, Emeritus Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford

Nicholas Shrimpton is the editor of Trollope's The Prime Minister (2011) and The Warden (2014) for Oxford World's Classics. His most recent title for Oxford World's Classics is Trollope's An Autobiography (2016). He is currently completing an edition of Matthew Arnold's poetry and a book on Arnold's early poetry.

Table of Contents

    Introduction
    Note on the Text
    Select Bibliography
    Chronology
    SYBIL
    Explanatory Notes

Reviews

"perfect timing for this new edition ... with a brilliant introduction that throws fresh light on Disraeli's views, explains the novel's culutural roots and defends its place as an accomplished work of fiction in its own right" - The Lady

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