Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) was a British statesman and novelist, twice Prime Minister and the only one to have been a professional author. The son of a Jewish man of letters, baptized at twelve, he published his first novel, Vivian Grey, at twenty-two and followed it with Henrietta Temple, Venetia and the political trilogy Coningsby, Sybil and Tancred. Entering Parliament in 1837, he destroyed Peel over the Corn Laws, led the Conservatives for nearly thirty years, passed the Reform Act of 1867, bought the Suez Canal shares and made Victoria Empress of India. He returned to fiction in old age with Lothair and Endymion.