This article is about the novel by Benjamin Disraeli. For the non-fiction book about Shirley Ardell Mason's treatment for dissociative identity disorder, see Sybil (Schreiber book).
The book is a roman à thèse, or a novel with a thesis — which was meant to create a furor over the squalor that was plaguing England's working class cities.
Disraeli's interest in this subject stemmed from his interest in the Chartist movement, a working-class political reformist movement that sought universal male suffrage and other parliamentary reforms. (Thomas Carlyle sums up the movement in his 1839 book Chartism.[1]) Chartism failed as a parliamentary movement (three petitions to Parliament were rejected); however, five of the "Six Points" of Chartism would become a reality within a century of the group's formation.
Disraeli was particularly inspired by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Children's Employment, which published a report interviewing working children in 1842. Sybil examines the moral corruption inherent in forcing children to work under such unpleasant conditions. The characters of the sixteen-year-old Dandy Mick and Devilsdust, who is abandoned by his mother and left to fend for himself, are particularly emblematic of this.[2]
The Difference Engine, a 1990 steampunk novel written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, contains alternate versions of several characters from Sybil, including Sybil Gerard, Walter Gerard, Charles Egremont and Dandy Mick. It also features Disraeli himself as a character.