Lothair (novel)
Encyclopedia
Lothair was the first novel written by Benjamin Disraeli after his first term
as Prime Minister
. It deals with the comparative merits of the Catholic and Anglican churches as heirs of Judaism, and with the topical question of Italian unification
. Though Lothair was a hugely popular work among 19th century readers, it now to some extent lies in the shadow of the same author's Coningsby
and Sybil
.
) has been brought up in the legal guardianship of his Presbyterian uncle Lord Culloden and of a Catholic convert, Cardinal Grandison (based on H. E. Manning). When he comes of age Lothair finds himself the centre of attention of three fascinating women, Lady Corisande, Clare Arundel, and Theodora Campion, representing the Church of England, the Roman Catholic church, and the Radical
cause respectively. Wavering in his allegiances, he unsuccessfully proposes marriage to Lady Corisande, almost joins the Catholic church, and finally joins Theodora in Italy as a volunteer in the army of Garibaldi
, which is fighting to take the Papal States
for Italy. Theodora is killed at Viterbo, and Lothair is seriously wounded at the Battle of Mentana
, but is nursed back to health by Clare Arundel, who tries to persuade him that he was saved by an apparition of the Virgin Mary. He takes refuge with the bohemian dandy Mr. Phoebus (a thinly disguised Frederic Leighton
), who takes him to Syria, which, as the cradle of Christianity, seems the ideal place to reflect on the roots of the Faith. In Jerusalem he meets Paraclete, a mystic who teaches him that there is truth in many religions. Lothair decides in favour of the Church of England, resisting the attempts of Cardinal Grandison and other prelates, including Mgr Catesby (a thinly disguised Thomas Capel
) to convert him to Catholicism, and returns to England where he marries Lady Corisande.
on May 2, 1870, in 3 volumes. This first edition of 2000 copies sold out in two days, and no less than seven more British editions were needed before the end of the year. In the United States, where it was published by Appleton
, 25,000 copies were sold in the first three days. Lothair-mania, as his publisher called it, was epidemic. A ship, a perfume, a galop
, a waltz, a song and two racehorses were named after either Lothair himself or Lady Corisande. Bret Harte
published a full-length parody called Lothaw: or, The Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion. By 1876 Disraeli had earned £7500 from the novel, but it had not been so beneficial to his political career. Conservative politicians, it has been said, asked themselves awkward questions:
Lothair-mania was less noticeable among the critics, some of whom had political differences with the author. Among the most unkind was the notice in Macmillan's Magazine, which declared that "A single conscientious perusal (without skipping) of Lothair would be a creditable feat: few will voluntarily attempt a second." The Quarterly Review
largely agreed, calling Disraeli's production:
The Conservative Pall Mall Gazette
made the best of Disraeli's stylistic carelessness by speculating that Lothair "Must have cost the author, we cannot help fancying, no effort whatever; it was as easy and delightful for him to write as for us to read."
After Disraeli's death the praise came more plentifully. Edmund Gosse
took the view that Disraeli had been writing with tongue in cheek, calling it "Unquestionably the greatest of his literary works – the superb ironic romance of Lothair"; the historian J. A. Froude
thought it "A work immeasurably superior to anything of the kind which he had hitherto produced", because more purely a work of art than the politically engaged Coningsby
and Sybil
; and the Liberal politician George W. E. Russell
judged it Disraeli's masterpiece, as being "A profound study of spiritual and political forces at a supremely important moment in the history of modern Europe". Sir Leslie Stephen
dissented, believing it "A practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon Disraeli's own youthful performances"; but as late as 1920 Disraeli's biographer George Earle Buckle
could still claim that Coningsby and Lothair were the two novels on which his reputation rested with the general reader.
British editions succeeded each other at short intervals up to the 1920s, but for the last 80 years Lothair has been reprinted less often than Sybil or Coningsby. A recent critic has noted that "It is largely unread today except by dedicated literary biographers." Oxford University Press
included it in their Oxford English Novels series in 1975, in an edition by Vernon Bogdanor
.
First Disraeli ministry
After the parliamentary session which produced the Second Reform Bill, Disraeli's eventual assumption of the leadership of the Conservative Party was all but assured...
as Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
. It deals with the comparative merits of the Catholic and Anglican churches as heirs of Judaism, and with the topical question of Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
. Though Lothair was a hugely popular work among 19th century readers, it now to some extent lies in the shadow of the same author's Coningsby
Coningsby (novel)
Coningsby, or The New Generation, is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli published in 1844.-Background:The book is set against a background of the real political events of the 1830s in England that followed the enactment of the Reform Bill of 1832...
and Sybil
Sybil (novel)
Sybil, or The Two Nations is an 1845 novel by Benjamin Disraeli. Published in the same year as Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Sybil traces the plight of the working classes of England...
.
Synopsis
Lothair, a wealthy young orphaned Scottish nobleman (loosely based on the 3rd Marquess of ButeJohn Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute
John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute KT, KSG, KGCHS was a landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian, scholar, philanthropist and architectural patron.-Early life:...
) has been brought up in the legal guardianship of his Presbyterian uncle Lord Culloden and of a Catholic convert, Cardinal Grandison (based on H. E. Manning). When he comes of age Lothair finds himself the centre of attention of three fascinating women, Lady Corisande, Clare Arundel, and Theodora Campion, representing the Church of England, the Roman Catholic church, and the Radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
cause respectively. Wavering in his allegiances, he unsuccessfully proposes marriage to Lady Corisande, almost joins the Catholic church, and finally joins Theodora in Italy as a volunteer in the army of Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
, which is fighting to take the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
for Italy. Theodora is killed at Viterbo, and Lothair is seriously wounded at the Battle of Mentana
Battle of Mentana
The Battle of Mentana was fought on November 3, 1867 between French-Papal troops and the Italian volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who were attempting to capture Rome, then the main centre of the peninsula still outside of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy....
, but is nursed back to health by Clare Arundel, who tries to persuade him that he was saved by an apparition of the Virgin Mary. He takes refuge with the bohemian dandy Mr. Phoebus (a thinly disguised Frederic Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA , known as Sir Frederic Leighton, Bt, between 1886 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical and classical subject matter...
), who takes him to Syria, which, as the cradle of Christianity, seems the ideal place to reflect on the roots of the Faith. In Jerusalem he meets Paraclete, a mystic who teaches him that there is truth in many religions. Lothair decides in favour of the Church of England, resisting the attempts of Cardinal Grandison and other prelates, including Mgr Catesby (a thinly disguised Thomas Capel
Thomas John Capel
Monsignor Thomas John Capel was born in Ireland on 28 October 1836 and died in Sacramento CA 23 October 1911.He was something of a celebrity in Victorian England famous for his high profile conversions to Catholicism, however various scandals caused him to be sent to the United States and further...
) to convert him to Catholicism, and returns to England where he marries Lady Corisande.
Critical and popular reception
Lothair was first published by Longmans, Green and Co.Longman
Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...
on May 2, 1870, in 3 volumes. This first edition of 2000 copies sold out in two days, and no less than seven more British editions were needed before the end of the year. In the United States, where it was published by Appleton
D. Appleton & Company
D. Appleton & Company was an American company founded by Daniel Appleton , who opened a general store which included books.- Timeline :* 1813 Relocated from Haverhill to Boston and imported books from England...
, 25,000 copies were sold in the first three days. Lothair-mania, as his publisher called it, was epidemic. A ship, a perfume, a galop
Galop
In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...
, a waltz, a song and two racehorses were named after either Lothair himself or Lady Corisande. Bret Harte
Bret Harte
Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...
published a full-length parody called Lothaw: or, The Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion. By 1876 Disraeli had earned £7500 from the novel, but it had not been so beneficial to his political career. Conservative politicians, it has been said, asked themselves awkward questions:
How could Parliamentarians be expected to trust an ex-Premier who, when half-way between sixty and seventy, instead of occupying his leisure, in accordance with the British convention, in classical, historical, or constitutional studies, produced a gaudy romance of the peerage, so written as to make it almost impossible to say how much was ironical or satirical, and how much soberly intended?…[It] revived all the former doubts as to whether a Jewish literary man, so dowered with imagination, and so unconventional in his outlook, was the proper person to lead a Conservative party to victory.
Lothair-mania was less noticeable among the critics, some of whom had political differences with the author. Among the most unkind was the notice in Macmillan's Magazine, which declared that "A single conscientious perusal (without skipping) of Lothair would be a creditable feat: few will voluntarily attempt a second." The Quarterly Review
Quarterly Review
The Quarterly Review was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by the well known London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967.-Early years:...
largely agreed, calling Disraeli's production:
A book which he calls a novel, but which is after all a political pamphlet, and a bid for the bigoted voices of Exeter HallExeter HallExeter Hall was a hall on the north side of The Strand, London, England. It was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site of Exeter Exchange, to designs by John Peter Gandy, the brother of the visionary architect Joseph Michael Gandy...
… It sins alike against good taste and justice…That there are happy thoughts and epigrammatic sentences sown broadcast in its
pages need scarcely be said of a novel written by Mr. Disraeli. But as the true pearl lies embedded in the loose fibre of a mollusc, so Mr. Disraeli's gems of speech and thought are hidden in a vast maze of verbiage which can seldom be called English, and very frequently is downright nonsense…So far as feeling is concerned Lothair is as dull as ditch-water and as flat as a flounder.
The Conservative Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
made the best of Disraeli's stylistic carelessness by speculating that Lothair "Must have cost the author, we cannot help fancying, no effort whatever; it was as easy and delightful for him to write as for us to read."
After Disraeli's death the praise came more plentifully. Edmund Gosse
Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
took the view that Disraeli had been writing with tongue in cheek, calling it "Unquestionably the greatest of his literary works – the superb ironic romance of Lothair"; the historian J. A. Froude
James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude , 23 April 1818–20 October 1894, was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church,...
thought it "A work immeasurably superior to anything of the kind which he had hitherto produced", because more purely a work of art than the politically engaged Coningsby
Coningsby (novel)
Coningsby, or The New Generation, is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli published in 1844.-Background:The book is set against a background of the real political events of the 1830s in England that followed the enactment of the Reform Bill of 1832...
and Sybil
Sybil (novel)
Sybil, or The Two Nations is an 1845 novel by Benjamin Disraeli. Published in the same year as Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Sybil traces the plight of the working classes of England...
; and the Liberal politician George W. E. Russell
George William Erskine Russell
George William Erskine Russell PC , known as George W. E. Russell, was a British biographer, memoirist and Liberal politician.-Background and education:...
judged it Disraeli's masterpiece, as being "A profound study of spiritual and political forces at a supremely important moment in the history of modern Europe". Sir Leslie Stephen
Leslie Stephen
Sir Leslie Stephen, KCB was an English author, critic and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.-Life:...
dissented, believing it "A practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon Disraeli's own youthful performances"; but as late as 1920 Disraeli's biographer George Earle Buckle
George Earle Buckle
George Earle Buckle was an English editor and biographer.-Early years:Buckle was the son of George Buckle, a rector, and canon and precentor of Wells Cathedral, and Mary Hamlyn Earle, the sister of the philologist John Earle. He attended Honition grammar school and Winchester College before...
could still claim that Coningsby and Lothair were the two novels on which his reputation rested with the general reader.
British editions succeeded each other at short intervals up to the 1920s, but for the last 80 years Lothair has been reprinted less often than Sybil or Coningsby. A recent critic has noted that "It is largely unread today except by dedicated literary biographers." Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
included it in their Oxford English Novels series in 1975, in an edition by Vernon Bogdanor
Vernon Bogdanor
Vernon Bogdanor, CBE, FBA is Research Professor at the Institute for Contemporary History at King's College London, and a Fellow of Brasenose College, University of Oxford. He is one of Britain's foremost constitutional experts and has written extensively on political and constitutional issues...
.
External links
- Online edition of Lothair at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...