SOURCE: "From Immersion to Reflection: Romance and Realism in Henrietta Temple and Venetia" in Disraeli's Fiction, Macmillan, 1979, pp. 55-77.

In the following excerpt, Schwarz defends Henrietta Temple and Venetia against charges that the novels lack aesthetic value and are discontinuous with Disraeli's other works.

I

The only book-length critical study of Disraeli's novels, Richard A. Levine's Benjamin Disraeli, criticises Henrietta Temple (1836) and Venetia (1837) because of their supposed objectivity:

In the final analysis, however, [Henrietta Temple] is neither typical nor meaningful in Disraeli's canon; for it carries within it few ideas or authorial observations, and Disraeli's fundamental interests for us are as a novelist of ideas and as a writer of personal involvement and observation. In Henrietta Temple and Venetia, Disraeli stands at some distance from his creations and produces two relatively impersonal works. His effectiveness for us is thereby lessened.¹

My argument in this chapter will take issue...