Lion And The Unicorn

Product Description

Gladstone & Disraeli were the fiercest political rivals of the modern age. Their intense hatred was ideological & deeply personal. Victorian Britain ruled the oceans & vast territories 'on which the sun never set'. The vitriolic duel between Gladstone & Disraeli was nothing less than a battle to lead the richest & most powerful nation on earth. To Disraeli his antagonist was an 'unprincipled maniac' characterised by an 'extraordinary mixture of envy vindictiveness hypocrisy & superstition'. For Gladstone his rival was ' The Grand Corrupter' whose destruction he plotted 'day & night week by week month by month'. Victorians were electrified by the confrontation. No wonder that when Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass" appeared in 1871 so many readers recognised the great adversaries as the warring lion & unicorn 'fighting for the crown'. Richard Aldous gives us the first modern telling of this dramatic story of an intense & momentous rivalry. His vivid narrative style
- at turns powerful witty stirring & theatrical
- breathes new life into a familiar half-remembered tale that is pivotal in Britain's island history. " The Lion & the Unicorn" is a brilliant rethinking of the Gladstone & Disraeli story for a new generation. Richard Aldous confirms a perennial truth: in politics everything is personal."