The Lion and the Unicorn

William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli were the fiercest political rivals of the nineteenth century. Their intense mutual hatred was both ideologically driven and deeply personal. Their vitriolic duels carried out over decades lend profound insight into the social and political currents that dominated Victorian England. To Disraelia legendary dandy descended from Sephardic Jewshis antagonist was an unprincipled maniac characterized by an extraordinary mixture of envy vindictiveness hypocrisy and superstition. For the conservative aristocrat Gladstone his rival was the Grand Corrupter whose destruction he plotted day and night week by week month by month. In the tradition of Roy Jenkins and A. N. Wilson Richard Aldous has written an outstanding political biography giving us the first dual portrait of this intense and momentous rivalry. Aldous''s vivid narrative styleby turns powerful witty and stirringbrings new life to the Gladstone and Disraeli story and confirms a perennial truth: in politics everything is personal.