Sarah Bradford's stylish and readable biography traces this theatrical career from Disraeli’s dandified Byronic Youth to his old age as great  Tory and  close friend of Queen Victoria. She describes how bouts of fierce parliamentary fighting and intrigue alternated with the periods of intense creativity activity which produced Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Sybil and the world’s best-seller Lothair, the novels becoming a glittering backdrop to his political rise. She untangle the complex financial intrigues in which Disraeli was embroiled all his life, being weighed down by enormous debts contracted even by the age of twenty. Using previously unknown letters and papers, she is able to throws new light on Disraeli's relationships with his sister Sarah, of whom he was passionately fond, and with his demanding wife, Mary Anne and most importantly, she brings to life the parliamentary debates through which Disraeli destroyed Peel as leader of the Conservative Party, split the Conservatives, duelled with Gladstone and achieved power as one of England's greatest prime ministers.