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Here it is, explained like you are 10:
England, says Disraeli, is really two nations, the rich and the poor, who barely know each other. Charles Egremont is rich and well born, and at first he only bets on horses. Then he travels, listens, and sees hunger and hard work for himself. He also meets Sybil, whose father leads working men fighting for their rights. This is a love story, but its real heart is a country split in two.
The novel opens in glitter, on the eve of the Derby in 1837, with young lords betting on horses and dining off gold plate while already bored with life. Among them is Charles Egremont, charming and well born, who stands or falls by the horse Caravan. It is a polished world that seems to need nothing and to notice nothing beyond itself.
Disraeli wrote the book to show the other England. His advertisement, dated May Day 1845, says he believes there is not a trait here without the authority of his own observation or the evidence taken by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees, though he had to leave out much that was true because readers would hardly believe it. That other nation is the poor: workers, Chartists, and families living hard lives.
Egremont's education carries the story, and so does his meeting with Sybil Gerard, whose father Walter Gerard speaks for working people. Love and politics cannot be kept apart in a country Disraeli calls two nations: the rich and the poor, with little knowledge or sympathy between them. The question the novel leaves is whether that gap can ever be bridged.
Benjamin Disraeli published Sybil; or, The Two Nations in 1845, a novel about England divided between rich and poor. Charles Egremont, a young aristocrat first seen betting on the Derby of 1837, learns how working people actually live, and meets Sybil Gerard, daughter of a Chartist leader. Disraeli's advertisement insists that its scenes rest on his own observation or on evidence gathered by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees.
Disraeli's Advertisement, signed from Grosvenor Gate on May Day 1845, is a short defence placed before the novel, and it deserves attention. The book's subject, he says, is the Condition of the People. A reader might suspect exaggeration in its scenes, so he states that he believes there is not a trait here for which he lacks the authority of his own observation, or authentic evidence received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees.
He adds a striking confession: absolute truth had to be trimmed. He found the necessity of suppressing much that is genuine, because the whole truth would look improbable and might deter readers. The fiction then opens at the Derby eve of 1837 in a golden saloon, among young nobles betting on Caravan and Mango, where Charles Egremont is introduced as the favourite of both sexes and the companion of the party heading to Epsom.
The dedication is to Disraeli's wife, praised as the most severe of critics but a perfect wife, whose taste and judgment guided the pages. Keep the Advertisement in mind as the glitter gives way to working England and Chartist meetings. Disraeli is asking to be read as a witness as well as a novelist.
Edition: Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 3760.
The first chapter
The general reader whose attention has not been specially drawn to the subject which these volumes aim to illustrate, the Condition of the People, might suspect that the Writer had been tempted to some exaggeration in the scenes which he has drawn and the impressions which he has wished to convey. He thinks it therefore due to himself to state that he believes there is not a trait in this work for which he has not the authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence which has been received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees. But while he hopes he has alleged nothing which is not true, he has found the absolute necessity of suppressing much that is genuine. For so little do we know of the state of our own country that the air of improbability that the whole truth would inevitably throw over these pages, might deter many from their perusal.
Grosvenor-Gate, May Day, 1845.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1845. Author died 1881. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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