Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli was the British statesman and novelist who served twice as Prime Minister, once in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880, and made Victorian conservatism intellectually respectable. Born in London in 1804 to a Jewish family, he was baptised at twelve and later took his Jewishness as a badge of distinction rather than a source of shame. His novels — Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Sybil — are still read for their diagnosis of class and power in Victorian England. As a politician he engineered the Reform Act of 1867 and the purchase of the Suez Canal shares. His epigrams are those of a man who understood power from the inside: the secret of success is constancy to purpose; there are three kinds of lies — lies, damned lies, and statistics; life is too short to be small. He died in 1881, reportedly declining a visit from Queen Victoria: she would only ask me to take a message to Albert.