Reviews for Benjamin Disraeli: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life

The average rating for Benjamin Disraeli: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-05-04 00:00:00 Bran Roth I began skimming this because I am writing a paper on Mary Wollstonecraft for a class, but within a page or two, I realized how beautiful it was and I backed up and began to read it in earnest. At a mere 50 pages I read it, riveted, in a single go. I'm glad it includes the word Memoir in the title, because it is not a true biography, were it making that kind of claim, it would read more like hagiography - it is a memoir of William Godwin's knowledge and experience of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. As a monument to his love for Wollstonecraft, Godwin, as her widower chose to expose with visceral honesty the story of Wollstonecraft's life; because he loved her so much that he believed she had nothing to be ashamed of. It's easy enough to agree with him from a modern perspective, but this memoir scandalized Wollstonecraft's legacy and left her groundbreaking masterpiece "On the Vindication of the Rights of Woman," despised and unread till Virginia Woolf unearthed it over a hundred years later and dusted it off for future feminists. I understood that going into the text, what I wasn't prepared for was how entirely Godwin loved and revered Wollstonecraft. His memoir caresses the memory of Wollstonecraft with the delicacy of a lover's hands. He sees and exposes every negative propensity Wollstonecraft possessed, but through the eyes of unconditional acceptance he explains how she could make no other choices and be true to herself. It is a memoir of love and devotion between two 18th century radicals that were centuries ahead of their time and it rocked my world. Highly recommended!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-10-04 00:00:00 Uyoy Ufouy like a very long wikipedia article