William Thomas Stead and the Peace Conferences at The Hague

In the summer of 1899 William Thomas Stead spent a long time in the Netherlands, mainly at The Hague. The reason of his stay was a major international peace conference…

Russia owes a great deal to Mr Stead”: Tsarism’s Unlikely Champion and the International Press

W. T. Stead was a legend in his own lifetime. Sensational journalist who invented the dubious concept of “trial by journalism”, ceaseless social campaigner, spiritualist, selfpublicist, childrens’ author, Joycean prototype…

When the King Becomes your Personal Enemy: W. T. Stead, King Leopold II, and the Congo Free State

I. The Congo Free State, Joseph Conrad, and the Review of Reviews From the first year of its existence the Review of Reviews regularly touched on the subject of the Congo Free…

Stead, Shiel and the Rajah’s Sapphire

Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947) was born on Montserrat in the West Indies. According to legend his father-a merchant, shipowner, and part-time Methodist lay preacher-claimed kinship with the ancient kings of…

W. T. Stead’s ‘Penny Poets’: Beyond Baylen

W. T. Stead’s ‘Masterpiece Library’ — founded with the ‘Penny Poets’ series in 1895, and then expanded in alliterating turn to include two further weekly series, the ‘Penny Popular Novels’…

W.T. Stead’s Books for the Bairns

The title of this series immediately conjures up a Scottish image but in fact Books for the Bairns were published in England by an Englishman. W. T. Stead, philanthropist, pacifist,…