| Front | Endymion |
|---|---|
| Back | Benjamin Disraeli His last Novel 1880 Describes the rise to position of eminence by Endymion and Myra Pitt Ferass Endymion is a novel published in 1880 by Benjamin Disraeli Like most of Disraeli's novels, Endymion is a romance, although Disraeli took the unusual step of setting it between 1819 and 1859. This meant that the hero of the novel–Endymion Ferrars–had to be a Whig, rather than a Tory. The time period that Disraeli chose was dominated by the Whig party; there would have been little opportunity for a young, rising Tory. Given that, it seems likely that Disraeli chose the time period in order to move a final time in the world in which he grew up and began his ascent. First edition from 1880 title page from Vol iii Plot William Pitt Ferrars, a rising Tory politician with ambitions to the cabinet, is disappointed of his hopes by the fall of the Tory ministry of the Duke of Wellington in 1832, and his party's overwhelming defeat in that year's parliamentary election. He retires from his opulent house in Hill Street, London, to the modest country estate of Hurstley; his failure to reenter the government in Sir Robert Peel's fugitive ministry in 1835, and his inability to secure a parliamentary seat in the elections, leads his wife to die of sorrow and disillusionment, and subsequently to his own suicide. He leaves behind him two adolescent children, Endymion and Myra, who are determined to redeem their father's legacy. Endymion has received a clerkship in Somerset House, a government office, and takes lodgings at the home of the Rodneys, former protegees of his parents; at Somerset House he becomes acquainted with Trenchard, Seymour Hicks, and the aspiring but pretentious novelist St. Barbe; Trenchard lays the foundations for his future career by introducing him to the debating club of the politically-minded Bertie Tremaine. In the meantime his sister is hired as a companion to the daughter of Adrian Neuchatel, a great Whig magnate and banker. Myra becomes a favorite member of the household, and her position enables her to introduce Endymion to the high society of the Whig party. Myra herself is wooed and won by Lord Roehampton, secretary of state in the Melbourne ministry. This places her in a position to forward Endymion's career, and she recommends him for private secretary to the Whig cabinet minister Sidney Wilton, an old friend of her father. Her brother distinguishes himself. In the elections of 1841, however, the Whigs are voted out of office, and Endymion loses his position. He compensates for this by getting elected to parliament in a constituency controlled by the Whig Lord Montfort, whose wife Endymion has befriended. Lord Montfort's power in the borough has been compromised by the rising influence of Lord Beaumaris, a former fellow-tenant of Endymion at the Rodneys; formerly a Whig, the weak-minded Beaumaris has been converted to Toryism by the eccentric Waldershare, another of the Rodney tenants. However, Beaumaris is controlled by his wife Imogene, Mrs Rodneys' sister, who is favorable to Endymion; Tories and Whigs, Beaumaris and Montfort, combine in Endymion's support, and he is elected unopposed. |
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