CARY, JOYCE: _To Be a Pilgrim_ (1942). Fading Tom Wilcher recreates
turn of the century politics for his niece as he tries to
perpetuate the old solid values.
----: _Prisoner of Grace_ (1952). Chester Nimmo’s 30-year rise from
lay preacher to cabinet minister through determination, astuteness,
and a political sixth sense.
CONRAD, JOSEPH: _Nostromo_ (1904). The rise and fall of Costaguanan
governments with help from a British mine-owner who ends up owned
by his mine.
----: _The Secret Agent_ (1907). Informer Adolf Verloc schemes to
blow up the Greenwich Observatory for a foreign power wanting to
prod the British into repression.
----: _Under Western Eyes_ (1910). A monarchist Russian is
destroyed by chance involvement in revolutionary acts. The work of
Red circles in and out of Russia.
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN: _Coningsby_ (1844). Enlightened nobleman at
last becomes an M.P.
----: _Sybil_ (1845). A less harried Young Englander does the same.
Panorama of England c. 1837-1852 with great popular uprisings
emphasizing national discontent.
----: _Tancred_ (1847). The hero recoils from politics, finding
spiritual and political insights amidst comic opera imbroglios in
the deserts of the Holy Land.
ELIOT, GEORGE: _Felix Holt, the Radical_ (1866). Provincial
politics in the 1830s. Gallery of types from the extreme radical to
granite conservative. Complicated plot.
FORSTER, E. M.: _A Passage to India_ (1924). Personal tragedies
emphasize national tragedy of divided and unhappy India governed by
inflexible and unfeeling Britain.
HUXLEY, ALDOUS: _Brave New World_ (1932). A totalitarian world of
the future in which stability has been achieved through destruction
of freedom and the soul.
MAUGHAM, SOMERSET: _Then and Now_ (1946). Niccolo Machiavelli
learns more about his profession negotiating with Borgia. Time out
for dalliance and teaching a novice.
MEREDITH, GEORGE: _Beauchamp’s Career_ (1876). A fiery young
radical’s political excursions end in family disruption, failure,
and death. More portraits of types.
ORWELL, GEORGE: _1984_ (1949). Chilling world of the future in
which the regime can control past and present, literally make two
and two equal five for its slaves.
SPRING, HOWARD: _Fame Is the Spur_ (1940). Over sixty years of
British politics with emphasis on the rise of the Labor Party and
the kinds of men who made it.
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY: _Phineas Finn_ (1869). The education of a young
Liberal in Commons. Disraeli v. Gladstone under other names.
Phineas’s conscience politically expensive.
----: _Phineas Redux_ (1874). More of the same with a murder trial
added.
----: _The Prime Minister_ (1876). The three-year tenure of the
Duke of Omnium’s coalition. The Duke, like Phineas, now infected by
the virus of disillusionment.
WARD, MRS. HUMPHREY: _Marcella_ (1894). Liberals v. Conservatives
as the scales drop from Venturist Marcella’s eyes leading her from
bad Wharton to good Raeburn.
WELLS, H. G.: _The New Machiavelli_ (1910). An illicit affair
destroys Dick Remington as Parnell had been destroyed. Early 20th
century political currents.