Sybil, or the Two Nations

Benjamin Disraeli was a British statesman and novelist. He was Prime Minister in 1868 and 1874. He gave the Conservative Party a policy of Tory democracy and imperialism. His travels furnished him with material for the Oriental descriptions he used in later novels and influenced his attitude toward foreign relations with India, Egypt, and Turkey in the 1870s. Disraeli uses the looming events of a country as a backdrop for the romance in this novel. Sybil is truly a good person. Egremont is a reformed aristocrat who loves her. Egremont has a scheming mother. These three provide the basis for a classic forbidden love story. Parliament, country houses, industrial towns and lower class regions intermingle in this novel. 19th century Britain is shown through Disraeli's diversified characters. to be a land in great flux.