----: _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. ITALIAN NOVELS MORAVIA, ALBERTO: _The Conformist_ (1951). Marcello Clerici’s attempt to escape abnormality leads him to a career in the Fascist secret police and political murder.