Vivian Grey

Vivian Grey

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vivian Grey, by The Earl of
Beaconsfield [AKA Benjamin Disraeli]
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Title: Vivian Grey
Author: The Earl of Beaconsfield [AKA Benjamin Disraeli]
Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9840] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 23,
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The English Comédie Humaine Second Series
VIVIAN GREY
BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
As a novelist, Benjamin Disraeli belongs to the early part of the
nineteenth century. "Vivian Grey" (1826-27) and "Sybil" (1845) mark
the beginning and the end of his truly creative period; for the two
productions of his latest years, "Lothair" (1870) and "Endymion"
(1880), add nothing to the characteristics of his earlier volumes except
the changes of feeling and power which accompany old age. His period,
thus, is that of Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray, and of the later years
of Sir Walter Scott--a fact which his prominence as a statesman during
the last decade of his life, as well as the vogue of "Lothair" and
"Endymion," has tended to obscure. His style, his material, and his
views of English character and life all date from that earlier time. He
was born in 1804 and died in 1881.
Disraeli was barely twenty-one when he published "Vivian Grey," his
first work of fiction; and the young author was at once hailed as a
master of his art by an almost unanimous press.

In this, as in his subsequent books, it was not so much Disraeli's
notable skill as a novelist but rather his portrayal of the social and
political life of the day that made him one of the most popular writers
of his generation, and earned for him a lasting fame as a man of letters.
In "Vivian Grey" is narrated the career of an ambitious young man of
rank; and in this story the brilliant author has preserved to us the exact
tone of the English drawing-room, as he so well knew it, sketching with
sure and rapid strokes a whole portrait gallery of notables, disguised in
name may be, but living characters nevertheless, who charm us with
their graceful manners and general air of being people of consequence.
"Vivian Grey," then, though not a great novel is beyond question a
marvelously true picture of the life and character of an interesting
period of English history and made notable because of Disraeli's fine
imagination and vivid descriptive powers.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Is there anything you want, sir?
He distinctly beheld Mrs. Felix Lorraine open a small silver box.
It was very slowly that the dark thought came over his mind.

VIVIAN GREY
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by
any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of
mothers, and the care of the most attentive of nurses, did their best to
injure an excellent constitution. But Vivian was an only child, and
these exertions were therefore excusable. For the first five years of his
life, with his curly locks and his fancy dress, he was the pride of his

own and the envy of all neighbouring establishments; but, in process of
time, the spirit of boyism began to develop itself, and Vivian not only
would brush his hair straight and rebel against his nurse, but actually
insisted upon being--breeched! At this crisis it was discovered that he
had been spoiled, and it was determined that he should be sent to
school. Mr. Grey observed, also, that the child was nearly ten years old,
and did not know his alphabet, and Mrs. Grey remarked that he was
getting ugly. The fate of Vivian was decided.
"I am told, my dear," observed Mrs. Grey, one day