Disraeli first appeared before the public in 1826, when he published _Vivian Grey_, an amazing book to be the production of a youth of twenty-two. Other novels--_The Young Duke_, _Venetia_, _Contarini Fleming_, _Henrietta Temple_--maintained without greatly increasing his reputation between 1831 and 1837. Then came two political stories, _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_, in 1844 and 1845, followed by _Tancred_ in 1847, and the _Life of Lord George Bentinck_ in 1852; with a long interval of silence, till, in 1870, he produced _Lothair_, in 1880 _Endymion_. Besides these he published in 1839 the tragedy of _Alarcos_, and in 1835 the more ambitious _Revolutionary Epick_, neither of which had much success. In 1828-31 he took a journey through the East, visiting Constantinople, Syria, and Egypt, and it was then, no doubt, in lands peculiarly interesting to a man of his race, that he conceived those ideas about the East and its mysterious influences which figure largely in some of his stories, notably in _Tancred_, and which in 1878 had no small share in shaping his policy and that of England. Meanwhile, he had not forgotten the political aspirations which we see in _Vivian Grey_. In 1832, just before the passing of the Reform Bill, he appeared as candidate for the petty borough of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and was defeated by a majority of twenty-three to twelve, so few were the voters in many boroughs of those days. After the Bill had enlarged the constituency, he tried his luck twice again, in 1833 and 1835, both times unsuccessfully, and came before two other boroughs also, Taunton and Marylebone, though in the latter case no contest took place. Such activity in a youth with little backing from friends and comparatively slender means marked him already as a man of spirit and ambition. His next attempt was more lucky. At the general election of 1837 he was returned for Maidstone.