Sybil Or The Two Nations

Sybil or The Two Nations is a novel by Benjamin Disraeli. Published in the same year as Friedrich Engelss The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 Sybil traces the plight of the working classes of England. Disraeli was interested in dealing with the horrific conditions in which the majority of Englands working classes lived — or what is generally called the Condition of England question. The book is a roman à thèse or a novel with a thesis — which was meant to create a furor over the squalor that was plaguing Englands working class cities. Disraelis novel was made into a silent film called Sybil in 1921 starring Evelyn Brent and Cowley Wright. Disraelis interest in this subject stemmed from his interest in the Chartist movement a working-class political reformist movement that sought universal male suffrage and other parliamentary reforms. (Thomas Carlyle sums up the movement in his 1839 book Chartism.) Chartism failed as a parliamentary movement (three petitions to Parliament were rejected); however five of the Six Points of Chartism would become a reality within a century of the groups formation.