In 1880, French Canadian journalist Joseph Tassé wrote Un parallèle: Lord Beaconsfield et Sir John Macdonald, a political comparison of Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), two-time prime minister of the United Kingdom, and Sir John A. Macdonald (1815-1891), the first prime minister of Canada. Eleven years later, the English translation by James Penny was published as Lord Beaconsfield and Sir John A. Macdonald: A Political and Personal Parallel.

This new edition of a classic text marks the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald’s birth and the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the Disraeli Project at Queen’s University, and includes for the first time both the French original and a fully annotated English text. Emerging from Michel Pharand’s research and the annotation of all Disraeli’s correspondence, this volume celebrates the remarkable careers and personalities of both leaders by re-issuing the only extended comparison of these important and controversial nineteenth-century Conservative prime ministers.

Demonstrating that their legacies continue to fascinate even in the twenty-first century, Lord Beaconsfield and Sir John A. Macdonald is an intriguing study of the lives and politics of these two impressive statesman.