Benjamin went first to a Nonconformist, later to a Unitarian school. At 18 he left school and studied for a year at home in his father's excellent library of 25,000 books. His father was a literary man who had published
The Curiosities of Literature (1791), a collection of anecdotes and character sketches about writers, with notes and commentary in excellent English. Though the book was published anonymously, its authorship soon became known, and Isaac achieved fame.
In November 1821 Benjamin was articled for 400 guineas by his father for 2 years to a firm of solicitors. He later held this against his father, who, he declared, had "never understood him, neither in early life, when he failed to see his utter unfitness to be a solicitor, nor in latter days when he had got into Parliament." However, Benjamin did not consider he had wasted his time, since working in the solicitor's office "gave me great facility with my pen and no inconsiderable knowledge of human nature."
In 1824, encouraged by John Murray, Disraeli wrote his first novel, the crude and jejune political satire Aylmer Papillon. The same year he started reading for the bar.
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