William Thomas Stead

Standard Name: Stead, William Thomas
Used Form: W. T. Stead

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Mary Frere
MF calls herself the collector, not the author. She first persuaded Anna Liberata to begin telling stories one day when, as the only woman in the elaborate camp attending her father, she was at a...
Cultural formation Annie S. Swan
After her son's death ASS , like so many others, made some approaches towards spiritualism. Her first experience, with a medium named Husk, repelled her by its crassness and triviality. A second experience, during the...
Education Christina Stead
CS 's father would have liked to have her education entirely in his own hands. The first books to be her favourites were the works of W. T. Stead , and fairy stories by the...
Family and Intimate relationships Annie Besant
William Stead , a political ally of AB , arranged for her to meet Madame Blavatsky .
Taylor, Anne, 1932 -. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1992.
240
Family and Intimate relationships Annie Besant
She later declared her love for William Stead , which he did not return.
Taylor, Anne, 1932 -. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1992.
200-1
Friends, Associates Marie Belloc Lowndes
As a child she had already met several distinguished writers in England, and Mary Clarke Mohl and Turgenev in France.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
369-70
As a young adult she quickly became known to many eminent members of the...
Friends, Associates Annie Besant
AM continued participation in the Law and Liberty League , which she had helped William Stead (for whom she entertained an unreciprocated love) to found the previous autumn.
Taylor, Anne, 1932 -. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1992.
200-1
Friends, Associates Flora Shaw
Here she became a friend of novelist and neighbour George Meredith , who introduced her to a wider social circle, including W.T. Stead , the scandalous journalist and editor of the Pall Mall Gazette...
Intertextuality and Influence Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL decided in her teens that she wanted to be a writer. In 1887, with the encouragement of her mother (who was based in France) the two of them embarked on a winter in the...
Literary responses Anna Kingsford
The Perfect Way was virtually ignored by the mainstream press, though it received a one-line notice in W. T. Stead 's Review of Reviews: Mystical, and very suggestive from the standpoint of the Christian...
Literary responses Josephine Butler
Initial sales of the work were not strong. W. T. Stead endeavoured to help by promoting the work as the Book of the Month in his Review of Reviews for October 1896.
Jordan, Jane. Josephine Butler. John Murray, 2001.
276
Literary responses Victoria Cross
The Athenæum argued that Anna Lombard was an inartistic book, weakened by VC 's choice of a male narrator: however much or little she may understand women, [Cross] has very little conception of a good...
Literary responses Victoria Cross
Reviewers were more approving of Six Chapters of a Man's Life than of many previous Cross novels. The Aberdeen Free Press, for instance, praised her uncommon literary ability, and in the Review of Reviews...
Literary responses Victoria Cross
Reviews continued to attack Cross's supposed immorality, even as some acknowledged the force of her writing. The New York Times postulated from Life's Shop Window that Victoria Cross, presumably, is a woman, and perhaps...
Literary responses Ella Hepworth Dixon
Once published, the novel was an astounding success.
Fehlbaum, Valerie. Ella Hepworth Dixon: the Story of a Modern Woman. Ashgate, 2005.
127
The New York Times reviewer drew parallels between it and Sara Jeannette Duncan 's A Daughter of To-Day (1894).
Dixon, Ella Hepworth. The Story of a Modern Woman. Editor Farmer, Steve, Broadview, 2004.
196-7, 196n1
Many contemporary reviewers found Dixon's...

Timeline

7 February 1865: The first issue appeared of George Smith's...

Writing climate item

7 February 1865

The first issue appeared of George Smith 's innovative evening newspaper, The Pall Mall Gazette.
Haight, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1968.
380
Clarke, Bob. From Grub Street to Fleet Street. Ashgate, 2004.
258-9, 262
Bourne, H. R. Fox. English Newspapers. Russell and Russell, 1966, 2 vols.
2: 273, 274, 339, 341, 342
“Concise History of the British Newspaper in the Nineteenth Century”. The British Library: The World’s Knowledge.

Later 1884: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty...

Building item

Later 1884

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (later the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children or NSPCC) was founded.
Bristow, Edward. Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain Since 1700. Gill and Macmillan, 1977.
92
Jackson, Louise A. Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England. Routledge, 2000.
16, 54-55

6 July 1885: The first instalment of W. T. Stead's Maiden...

Writing climate item

6 July 1885

The first instalment of W. T. Stead 's Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, exposing the alleged sale of young girls in prostitution.
Walkowitz, Judith R. ’We Are Not Beasts of the Field’: Prostitution and the Campaign Against the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1869-1886. University of Rochester, 1974.
131
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
81-3, 101

12 July 1885: Lloyd's Weekly News published the story of...

Building item

12 July 1885

Lloyd's Weekly News published the story of Mrs Armstrong, whose daughter's purchase as a white slave had been recounted in Stead 's Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
106-7

August 1885: The most powerful social purity organization,...

National or international item

August 1885

The most powerful social purity organization, the National Vigilance Association , was founded.
Petrow, Stefan. Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office 1870-1914. Clarendon Press, 1994, p. 343.
122-5
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
129

23 October 1885: The trial began in London of W. T. Stead...

National or international item

23 October 1885

The trial began in London of W. T. Stead and others for the abduction of Eliza Armstrong , purchased as a white slave.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
106-7

5 November 1885: W. T. Stead published his defence, which...

Building item

5 November 1885

W. T. Stead published his defence, which had been deemed inadmissible in court, of his motives for abductingEliza Armstrong for his Pall Mall Gazette exposé of July.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
111-12, 277

Early November 1885: Four of the six defendants in the W. T. Stead...

National or international item

Early November 1885

Four of the six defendants in the W. T. Stead abduction case (following his attempt to expose the white slave trade) were found guilty.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
106, 115

November 1887: The Law and Liberty League was founded by...

National or international item

November 1887

The Law and Liberty League was founded by newspaper publisher W.T. Stead and socialist/secularist Annie Besant .
Petrow, Stefan. Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office 1870-1914. Clarendon Press, 1994, p. 343.
24

4 February 1888: Annie Besant and W.T. Stead edited the first...

Women writers item

4 February 1888

Annie Besant and W.T. Stead edited the first weekly issue of The Link: A Journal for the Servants of Man / Law and Liberty League, published in London.
Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press, 1987.
12

April 1890: W. T. Stead established the Review of Reviews...

Writing climate item

April 1890

W. T. Stead established the Review of Reviews Office in Mowbray House, London.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
266, 270

1895: William Thomas Stead established the Review...

Writing climate item

1895

William Thomas Stead established the Review of Reviews Circulatory Library in London to make available books for all adults and children regardless of class.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
270

November 1896: The Publishers Council objected to series...

Writing climate item

November 1896

The Publishers Council objected to series such as Popular New Novels, The Masterpiece Library, and the Review of Reviews, all of which published abridgements of popular novels and were edited by W. T. Stead .
Kingsford, Reginald John Lethbridge. The Publisher’s Association, 1896-1946. Cambridge University Press, 1970.
11

1 January 1897: Grant Richards, who had been an assistant...

Writing climate item

1 January 1897

Grant Richards , who had been an assistant editor on W. T. Stead 's Review of Reviews, founded his own publishing house at 9 Henrietta Street in Covent Garden.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
272
Myers, Robin. The British Book Trade, from Caxton to the Present Day. Andre Deutsch in association with the National Book League, 1973.
346

Texts

Stead, William Thomas. “Book of the Month: The Novel of the Modern Woman”. Review of Reviews, Vol.
10
, 1894, pp. 64-74.
Besant, Annie, and William Thomas Stead, editors. The Link. A. Bonner, 1-44.