[ book tip by Dianne Brown ] It is always a pleasure to read a book set in one’s home town, but it is disconcerting to find one’s ancestors depicted as drunken savages, so barbaric that they hardly knew knives and forks existed, let alone which one to use. (I’m sure my great-grandparents even had tablecloths.)

Disraeli set out to shock, and ignored any aspects of such lives that might water down his reader’s indignation. Written in 1845, Sybil set out to jolt Victorian complacency about the conditions of the poor, much as Dickens did, by contrasting the leisured upper classes with the lives of the poor in the new industrial towns. These towns had grown as shanty towns so quickly that there were almost no educational, religious or social services, and – what particularly shocked Disraeli as a career politician – no access to government aid or control. Little or nothing was written or known to outsiders about such places at the time, and Disraeli, an outsider himself, would not let such conditions be ignored. It could be said that Disraeli was a better politician than an author and his style sometimes falters, but anyone interested in social conditions then and their continued relevance to urban societies in any country at any time should read this book.

[ Favourite quote ] 'Terrible news from Birmingham, they have massacred the police and sacked the town!'

[ book info ] Disraeli, Benjamin: Sybil. The two nations. (original language: English) Worsdworth, London, 1995 (1845). ISBN: 185326248X.