The New Machiavelli

The New Machiavelli purports to be written in the first person by its protagonist, Richard "Dick" Remington, who has a lifelong passion for "statecraft" and who dreams of recasting the social and political form of the English nation. Remington is a brilliant student at Cambridge, writes several books on political themes, marries a wealthy heiress, and enters parliament as a Liberal influenced by the socialism of a couple easily recognizable as the Webbs, only to go over to the Conservatives. Remington undertakes the editing of an influential political weekly and is returned to parliament on a platform advocating the state endowment of mothers, but his career is wrecked by his love affair with a brilliant young Oxford graduate, Isabel Rivers.