Venetia

What It's About

Venetia Herbert grows up at Cherbury, a secluded country estate, under the care of her strict and deeply religious mother, Lady Annabel. Her father, the poet Marmion Herbert, left the family years earlier, and his name is never spoken at home. As Venetia matures, she befriends the brilliant, wayward young Lord Cadurcis, a neighbour whose poetic fame brings him into fashionable society. She begins to question the silence surrounding her father. The novel follows her divided loyalties between a mother's rigid virtue and the pull of genius and passion. Its other main characters include the worldly Lady Monteagle and the Cadurcis family's imperious circle. The tale is set against the social world of late Georgian England.

Key Concepts

Disraeli drew Marmion Herbert and Lord Cadurcis from Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, so the book works partly as a roman à clef about the Romantic poets and their scandalous reputations. Its central themes are the clash between conventional morality and artistic freedom, the effects of a broken marriage on a child, and the limits of religious severity. Readers have often noted that the Byron portrait is its most vivid achievement, though the plot is sometimes judged less assured than the characterisation.

About the Author

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) was a British statesman and novelist, born in London. He entered Parliament in 1837, the year this novel appeared, and rose to lead the Conservative Party. He served twice as Prime Minister and became one of the leading political figures of Victorian Britain.