Review of Reviews
Encyclopedia
The Review of Reviews was a noted family of monthly journals founded in 1890-93 by British reform journalist William Thomas Stead
(1849–1912). Established across three continents in London (1891), New York (1892) and Melbourne (1893), the Review of Reviews, American Review of Reviews and Australasian Review of Reviews represented Stead’s dream of a global publishing empire.
in July 1885.
As a result, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised the consent age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, similar to "statutory rape" laws in the United States. As editor of the London Pall Mall Gazette (1883–1889), Stead caused newspapers to appear the way they are today. He introduced cross-heads (section titles) and signed articles, popularized interviews, and started illustrations and indexing. An advanced feminist, he was the first London editor to pay women equally with men.
He authored many books, including The Truth about Russia (1888), If Christ Came to Chicago (1893), and The Americanization of the World (1902).[1] His essay "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic" (1886) is considered his first prediction of the sinking of the RMS Titanic; his novel From the Old World to the New (1892) was the second prediction. Stead himself died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
proprietor Sir George Newnes. It was originally to be called the Six Penny Monthly and Review of Reviews, but this was changed at the last minute. According to Stead, it was "the maddest thing" he had yet done, on account that the venture had been decided on only a month before.
The Review mirrored Stead's own over-active imagination and was written almost exclusively by him. Along with the dozens of magazine and book reviews it contained, it also included a running commentary of world events entitled, "The Progress of the World", and a character sketch of a current "celebrity". The first issue was an instant success, and opened with numerous facsimiled welcome messages which Stead had courted from various dignitaries of the time. However, Stead's relationship with Newnes came under strain when the latter strongly objected to Stead's scathing character sketch of The Times
newspaper (eventually published in March).
Perhaps seeing this discord as a sign of things to come, Newnes severed ties, exclaiming that the whole venture was "turning his hair grey". After buying out Newnes's share, Stead shaped the Review after his own image. With article titles such as "Baby-killing as an Investment" and "Ought Mrs. Maybrick to be Tortured to Death?", Stead showed he had lost none of the sledge hammer force of his journalistic days. He also involved the Review in social work, setting up the "Association of Helpers" and even an adoption agency called "The Baby Exchange".
Stead was an early supporter and speaker of the language Esperanto
and devoted one page to its promulgation in every issue.
In 1891-92, Stead founded the equally successful American and Australian editions of the Review, and, in London, he added to his success with other literary triumphs, such as Stead's Penny Poets and "Books for the Bairns", all published under the Reviews auspices. However, in spite of such apparent successes, without the business-like Newnes to guide him, Stead frequently drove the Review to death's door, despite the best efforts of his business manager, Edwin H. Stout.
This was particularly the case during the Boer War
(1899–1902), when his pro-Boer stance caused sales to slump to critical levels. Stead's attempt to recoup his losses, with the launch of the ill-fated The Daily Paper, was a complete failure and, almost bankrupt, he suffered a nervous breakdown. The Review somehow limped on, buoyed up by a narrow but devoted subscription base. But, following the loss of Stead in the Titanic disaster, it lost much of its force and, in c. 1917, was sold for just £25000. It was eventually merged with World magazine and renamed the World Review in 1940. One of its latter editors was Lovat Dickson
.
.
Published from New York, The American Review of Reviews ran simultaneously alongside its British counterpart. As such, it represented the views and concerns of participants in the trans-Atlantic culture of progressive reform so brilliantly discussed in Daniel T. Rodgers's Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998).
Shaw was part of the first generation of academic reformers, which included Woodrow Wilson
(who was his classmate at Johns Hopkins University
). Born in Iowa, Shaw studied at Grinnell College and received his doctorate in government at Johns Hopkins in 1884. Declining an appointment at Cornell, Shaw became editor of the Minneapolis Tribune and a widely published author of books on municipal reform.
The American Review of Reviews is one of the best primary sources on American reform between 1890 and 1920, providing not only a panoramic view of the range of reformers' interests, but also the ties between British and American progressives. By volume 3, however, its style had departed significantly from that of its British cousin.
The American Review of Reviews ran until 1937, when it merged into The Literary Digest.
(last accessed 2009-07-09):
William Thomas Stead
William Thomas Stead was an English journalist and editor who, as one of the early pioneers of investigative journalism, became one of the most controversial figures of the Victorian era. His 'New Journalism' paved the way for today's tabloid press...
(1849–1912). Established across three continents in London (1891), New York (1892) and Melbourne (1893), the Review of Reviews, American Review of Reviews and Australasian Review of Reviews represented Stead’s dream of a global publishing empire.
Founder, W.T. Stead
Stead was a career journalist who was drawn into reform politics in the 1880s, crusading through for such causes as British-Russian friendship, the reform of England's criminal codes, and the maintenance of international peace. He was most famous in Britain for having passed, almost single-handedly, the first child-protection law by investigating and reporting child vice and white slavery in a series of articles titled the "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", published in the Pall Mall GazettePall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
in July 1885.
As a result, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised the consent age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, similar to "statutory rape" laws in the United States. As editor of the London Pall Mall Gazette (1883–1889), Stead caused newspapers to appear the way they are today. He introduced cross-heads (section titles) and signed articles, popularized interviews, and started illustrations and indexing. An advanced feminist, he was the first London editor to pay women equally with men.
He authored many books, including The Truth about Russia (1888), If Christ Came to Chicago (1893), and The Americanization of the World (1902).[1] His essay "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic" (1886) is considered his first prediction of the sinking of the RMS Titanic; his novel From the Old World to the New (1892) was the second prediction. Stead himself died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
The Review of Reviews
The Review of Reviews was started in January, 1890 by W.T. Stead and Tit-BitsTit-Bits
Tit-Bits was a British weekly magazine founded by George Newnes on 22 October 1881 until 18 July 1984, when it was taken over by Associated Newspapers' Weekend, which itself closed in 1989. The last editors were David Hill and Brian Lee...
proprietor Sir George Newnes. It was originally to be called the Six Penny Monthly and Review of Reviews, but this was changed at the last minute. According to Stead, it was "the maddest thing" he had yet done, on account that the venture had been decided on only a month before.
The Review mirrored Stead's own over-active imagination and was written almost exclusively by him. Along with the dozens of magazine and book reviews it contained, it also included a running commentary of world events entitled, "The Progress of the World", and a character sketch of a current "celebrity". The first issue was an instant success, and opened with numerous facsimiled welcome messages which Stead had courted from various dignitaries of the time. However, Stead's relationship with Newnes came under strain when the latter strongly objected to Stead's scathing character sketch of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper (eventually published in March).
Perhaps seeing this discord as a sign of things to come, Newnes severed ties, exclaiming that the whole venture was "turning his hair grey". After buying out Newnes's share, Stead shaped the Review after his own image. With article titles such as "Baby-killing as an Investment" and "Ought Mrs. Maybrick to be Tortured to Death?", Stead showed he had lost none of the sledge hammer force of his journalistic days. He also involved the Review in social work, setting up the "Association of Helpers" and even an adoption agency called "The Baby Exchange".
Stead was an early supporter and speaker of the language Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
and devoted one page to its promulgation in every issue.
In 1891-92, Stead founded the equally successful American and Australian editions of the Review, and, in London, he added to his success with other literary triumphs, such as Stead's Penny Poets and "Books for the Bairns", all published under the Reviews auspices. However, in spite of such apparent successes, without the business-like Newnes to guide him, Stead frequently drove the Review to death's door, despite the best efforts of his business manager, Edwin H. Stout.
This was particularly the case during the Boer War
Boer War
The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat and the Republiek van Transvaal ....
(1899–1902), when his pro-Boer stance caused sales to slump to critical levels. Stead's attempt to recoup his losses, with the launch of the ill-fated The Daily Paper, was a complete failure and, almost bankrupt, he suffered a nervous breakdown. The Review somehow limped on, buoyed up by a narrow but devoted subscription base. But, following the loss of Stead in the Titanic disaster, it lost much of its force and, in c. 1917, was sold for just £25000. It was eventually merged with World magazine and renamed the World Review in 1940. One of its latter editors was Lovat Dickson
Lovat Dickson
Lovat Dickson, born Horatio Henry Lovat Dickson was a notable publisher and writer, the first Canadian to have a major publishing role in Britain. He is best known today for his biographies of Grey Owl, Richard Hillary, Radclyffe Hall and H. G. Wells...
.
The American Review of Reviews
The American Review of Reviews was edited by the American academic, journalist, and reformer, Albert ShawAlbert Shaw (journalist)
Albert Shaw was a prominent American journalist and academic of the early 20th century.-Life:Born in Shandon, Ohio to the family of Dr. Griffin M. Shaw, Albert Shaw moved to Iowa in the spring of 1875, where he attended Iowa College specializing in constitutional history and economic science and...
.
Published from New York, The American Review of Reviews ran simultaneously alongside its British counterpart. As such, it represented the views and concerns of participants in the trans-Atlantic culture of progressive reform so brilliantly discussed in Daniel T. Rodgers's Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998).
Shaw was part of the first generation of academic reformers, which included Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
(who was his classmate at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
). Born in Iowa, Shaw studied at Grinnell College and received his doctorate in government at Johns Hopkins in 1884. Declining an appointment at Cornell, Shaw became editor of the Minneapolis Tribune and a widely published author of books on municipal reform.
The American Review of Reviews is one of the best primary sources on American reform between 1890 and 1920, providing not only a panoramic view of the range of reformers' interests, but also the ties between British and American progressives. By volume 3, however, its style had departed significantly from that of its British cousin.
The American Review of Reviews ran until 1937, when it merged into The Literary Digest.
Selected volumes
Full-text on-line versions available via Google BooksGoogle Book Search
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
(last accessed 2009-07-09):
- Vol I: 1890: January–July (not found)
- Vol II: 1890: August–January (not found)
- Vol III: 1891: January–July
- Vol IV: 1891: August–January
- Vol V: 1892: January–June (not found)
- Vol VI: 1892: July–December (not found)
- Vol VII: 1893: January–June (not found)
- Vol VIII: 1894: July–December (not found)
- Vol IX: 1894: January–June
- Vol X: 1894: July–December (not found)
- Vol XI: 1895: January–June
- Vol XII: 1895: July–December (not found)
- Vol XIII: 1896: January–June
- Vol XV: 1897: January–June
- Vol XVI: 1897: July–December
- Vol XV: 1898: January–June
- Vol XVI: 1898: July–December (not found)
- Vol VII: 1899: January–June (not found)
- Vol XX: 1899: July–December
- Vol XXI: 1900: January–June
- Vol XXII: 1900: July–December
- Vol XXIII: 1901: January–June
- Vol XXIV: 1901: July–December
- Vol XXV: 1902: January–June (not found)
- Vol XXVI: 1902: July–December (not found)
- Vol XXVII: 1903: January–June (not found)
- Vol XXVIII: 1903: July–December (not found)
- Vol XXIX: 1904: January–June (not found)
- Vol XXX: 1904: July–December
- Vol XXXI: 1905: January–June
- Vol XXXII: 1905: July–December (not found)
- Vol XXXIII: 1906: January–June
- Vol XXXIV: 1906: July–December
- Vol XXXV: 1907: January–June
- Vol XXXVI: 1907 July–December
- Vol XXXVII: 1908: January–June
- Vol XXXVIII: 1908 July–December
- Vol XXXIX: 1909: January–June
- Vol XL: 1909: July–December (not found)
- Vol XLI: 1910: January–June
- Vol XLII: 1910 July–December
- Vol XLIII: 1911: January–June
- Vol XLIV: 1911 July–December
- Vol XLV: 1912: January–June
- Vol XLVI: 1912 July–December
- Vol XLVII: 1913: January–June
- Vol XLVIII: 1913 July–December
- Vol XLIX: 1914: January–June
- Vol L: 1914: July–December (not found)
- Vol LI: 1915: January–June
- Vol LII: 1915 July–December
- Vol LII: 1916: January–June
- Vol LIII: 1916: July–December (not found)
- Vol LIV: 1917: January–June (not found)
- Vol LV: 1917: July–December (not found)
- Vol LVII: 1918: January–June
- Vol LVIII: 1918 July–December
- Vol LXI: 1919: January–June
- Vol LX: 1919 July–December
- Vol LXI: 1920: January–June (not found)
- Vol LXII: 1920: July–December (not found)
- Vol LXIII: 1921: January–June (not found)
- Vol LXIV: 1921 July–December
- Vol LXVI: 1922: January–June
- Vol LXV: 1922: July - December
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