[Disraeli, Benjamin] Blake, Baron Robert Norman William.

Disraeli by Robert Blake [SIGNED First Edition].

First Edition. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966. Large Octavo. Frontispiece-Portrait of Disraeli, XXIV, [1], 819 pages with 16 illustrations and two maps within the text. Hardcover / Original publisher’s cloth without the dustjacket [Price includes the preparation of a custom-made clamshell-box for the buyer of this extremely rare book]. Private giftinscription on endpaper. Binding a bit fragile and rear gutter starting. Boards slightly stained and a bit grubby. Still in very good condition. Interior very clean. This is one of the rare opportunities to buy this Magnus Opus in a signed version, which is nearly impossible to find ! Signed and dated by Baron Blake on the titlepage: “Robert Blake – March 31st 1970”.

Robert Norman William Blake, Baron Blake, FBA, FRSL (23 December 1916 – 20 September 2003), was an English historian and peer. He is best known for his 1966 biography of Benjamin Disraeli, and for The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill, which grew out of his 1968 Ford lectures.

Robert Blake was born in Brundall, Norwich, the elder son of William Joseph Blake, a schoolmaster, and of Norah Lindley Blake, (née Daynes), the daughter of a leading Norwich solicitor. The family firm was Daynes, Hill & Perks, subsequently acquired by Eversheds. He was said to be related to Admiral Robert Blake, of the Parliamentary navy.

Blake was educated at a dame school in Brundall; King Edward VI’s Norwich School, where his father taught History; and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was an Eldon Law Scholar. He graduated from Oxford with a First in Modern Greats and a hockey Blue. One of his contemporaries at Oxford was Sir Keith Joseph.

Blake had planned to go to the bar. However, when the Second World War broke out he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery, turning down an offer from a friend to join MI5. He was taken prisoner at the Siege of Tobruk in 1942, escaped from Italy in 1944, and was mentioned in despatches. He worked for MI6 from 1944 to 1946, where he was a colleague of Kim Philby.

In 1947 he became a student (fellow) and tutor in Politics at Christ Church, Oxford, replacing Lord Pakenham, who had joined Clement Attlee’s government. His first work was an edition of the papers of Douglas Haig, which did much to restore Haig’s reputation. It was followed by a biography of Bonar Law, written at the invitation of Lord Beaverbrook, Law’s executor.

Blake’s most famous work is his 1966 Disraeli, a biography of Benjamin Disraeli, which has been variously described as “the best single-volume biography of any British prime minister” and “the best biography of anyone in any language”. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy the following year.

Having abandoned a project for a biography of Lord Derby, in 1970 he published The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill, a general history of the Conservative Party based on his 1968 Ford Lectures. The work was later extended to cover the period up to the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and, later, that of John Major.

In 1968 he was elected provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford, a post he retained until retirement in 1987. On 17 May 1971, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister Edward Heath, Blake was created a life peer as Baron Blake, of Braydeston in the County of Norfolk. In the House of Lords he took the Conservative whip. In 1972 he moved the address in reply to the Queen’s Speech.

His History of Rhodesia (1977) is, according to Kenneth O. Morgan, “essentially a study of white rule, ending with sharp comments on the illegal breakaway regime of Ian Smith, where Blake’s views were much influenced by his friendship with the liberal Garfield Todd and his daughter”. It makes interesting reading in conjunction with the less critical Rainbow on the Zambezi (1953) by Don Taylor.

In 1987 Lord Blake was nominated in the election for the Oxford Chancellorship, but lost to Roy Jenkins, although polling ahead of Edward Heath. Blake was hurt by the fact that the Cabinet had decided to endorse Heath, and became withdrawn from Oxford.

In 1990 he was one of the leading historians behind the setting up of the History Curriculum Association. The Association advocated a more knowledge-based history curriculum in schools. It expressed “profound disquiet” at the way history was being taught in the classroom and observed that the integrity of history was threatened.

In 1992 Blake gave the centenary Romanes Lecture on “Gladstone, Disraeli and Queen Victoria”.

Blake was for many years Senior Member (the University don responsible for ruling on internal disputes such as accusations of electoral malpractice) of the Oxford University Conservative Association. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Biography · Biography – Rare · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · English History · English History – Rare · English Literature – Rare · Prime Minister · Signed
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 32459AB

EUR 3.500,--