The Encyclopedia of the British Press is a long awaited reference
book, invaluable for journalists, historians and anyone interested
in the history of newspapers. It contains biographies of editors,
journalists, press magnates and other people with a formative
influence on the British Press since 1422. Together they form a
rich archive with entries covering a wide range of people: famous
newspaper dynasties such as the Aitkens, Berrys and Harmsworths;
newspaper giants, such as Caxton, and Daniel Defoe, regarded by
many as the "father of English journalism"; and at the other end of
the spectrum low-life characters such as the nineteenth century
editor, Charles Westmacott, who used his paper as a vehicle for
blackmail, and Henry Bate, known as the 'fighting parson' for the
duels he fought whilst editor of the Morning Post. Entries on
newspapers include all the present nationals and regionals, as well
as many historical papers, such as the Pall Mall Gazette, North
Briton, Daily Courant, Charles Dickens' Household Words and The
Review, launched in 1713, which was the first paper to offer
opinion on political affairs - the forerunner of modern editorials.
The encyclopedia opens with a series of six definitive essays
charting the long and chequered career of the British Press from
1476 when William Caxton set up the first press in Westminster, and
his apprentice Wynkyn de Worde started the first printing business
in Fleet Street. It follows the changing patterns of newspapers
from the seventeenth century - when many were opposed to newspapers
on the grounds that "it makes the Multitude too familiar with the
actions and Counsels of their superiors" (Sir Roger L'Estrange
1663), - to the suddengrowth of the provincial press in the
eighteenth century, changes in distribution in the nineteenth
century, abolition of the stamp tax, and finally the revolutionary
changes of the twentieth century which included the unprecedented
leap in circulation after the First World War, the concentration of
papers in the hands of a few press barons in the thirties, wartime
privations, growth of free newspapers, and finally the advent of
new technology in the 1980s and the bitter labour disputes that
ensued. In addition the encyclopedia contains a detailed
chronology, numerous appendices, lists of editors of each
newspaper, and finally an exhaustive bibliography arranged by
subject. In 1881 Charles Pebody wrote "It ought to be one of the
most interesting works upon our library shelves ... never was an
institution better deserved to have its history written than the
Newspaper Press". Over a century later this ground-breaking
encyclopedia is published specifically to redress the balance.
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