1 - The World of Ton
Summary
Few books have been more dangerous to a young man of this temperament, in middle life, than Vivian Grey. No romance is so hazardous as that of real life: the adventures seem so possible, yet so exciting.
When the first two volumes of Vivian Grey were published in 1826 a controversy erupted surrounding the identity of the author. According to the initial advertisement for the work,
A very singular novel of the satirical kind is on the eve of publication, to be called ‘Vivian Grey’. It is said to be a sort of Don Juan in prose, detailing the adventures of an ambitious, dashing, and talented young man of high life. The style in which it is written is, we understand, perfectly original and spirited, and nearly all the individuals at present figuring in fashionable society are made to flourish, with different degrees of honour, in the page of this new work. It has been whispered that it is the intention of the author to resume the history of his hero (after the manner of Lord Byron's celebrated work) from time to time, to carry him into every scene of modern life, and to make him intimately acquainted with every fashionable and political character of the day.
The novel purported to offer an inside view of the ton, yet author Benjamin Disraeli himself had little acquaintance with the fashionable world when he wrote it. Indeed, as Andre Maurois explains, the revelation that the author was not the fashionable heavyweight suggested by publisher Henry Colburn's puffery, but an unknown young man, met with strong resentment:
Great was the wrath of the fashionable world when they discovered that the unknown author whose talent and knowledge of English society they had been extolling for a month, was a young man of twenty, and did not even belong to the fashionable world.
According to Disraeli's biographer, Christopher Hibbert, Colburn gave £300 for the copyright of the novel and advertised it heavily, telling an editor, ‘I have a capital book out – Vivian Grey. The authorship is a great secret – a man of high fashion – very high – keeps the first society.
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- Information
- Fashioning the Silver Fork Novel , pp. 27 - 52Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014