First Lady of Fleet Street: A Biography of Rachel Beer - Hardcover

Yehuda Koren; Eilat Negev

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1906779198 ISBN 13: 9781906779191

Publisher: JR Books Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

Rachel Beer was both a rebel and a pioneer. In the late 19th century, at a time when women were still denied the vote, she became the first woman ever to edit a national British newspaper in fact two, The Sunday Times and the Observer. It was to be over eighty years before another woman took the helm of a Fleet Street paper. As a woman she was barred not only from frequenting the London Clubs that fed her rival male editors with political gossip, but also from the Press Gallery of the House of Commons. However, whilst other female journalists were restricted to frocks, frills and frippery, Rachel managed to raise her formidable voice on national and foreign political issues including the notorious Dreyfus Affair as well as on social and women s issues, often controversially. Aunt of the poet Siegfried, Rachel's family, the Sassoons, had made their fortune in Indian opium and cotton. Her marriage to Frederick Beer brought together two wealthy dynasties. It was also to bring Rachel strife and heartbreak for while the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, attended the wedding, Frederick's father s decision to abandon the Jewish religion and baptize his son led to Rachel being disowned by many of her proudly Jewish family. Rachel anticipated her family's rage, but ultimately followed her heart, only for tragedy to strike when her beloved husband died and her family conspired to have her certified. Drawing on a wealth of original material, First Lady of Fleet Street paints a vivid picture of a remarkable woman and of the times in which she lived. It also provides an important history of two venerable Jewish families, their origins and their rise to eminence.

About this title

Review:

It is an extraordinary story, all the more remarkable in that such a fascinating woman should be almost completely unknown. All credit to the authors for giving the first lady of Fleet Street the byline she deserves. --The Sunday Times 17 April 2011

It is an extraordinary story, all the more remarkable in that such a fascinating woman should be almost completely unknown. All credit to the authors for giving the first lady of Fleet Street, the byline she deserves. --The Sunday Times (Culture Magazine), April 17, 2011

Who was the first woman to edit a national newspaper in Britain?...It was the redoubtable Rachel Sassoon Beer who, in 1891, really upset convention by taking up the reins of a national newspaper - the Observer. Now biographers Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren have handsomely made up for the information deficit. Their book is a comprehensive study of Beer's life, covering her glamorous days as a Mayfair socialite and concluding in the sad and unjust official declaration that she was "of unsound mind". --Vanessa Thorpe, The Observer, June 5, 2011

It is an engaging tale. --Hugh Carnegy, The Financial Times, May 9, 2011

About the Author:

Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev are the authors of In Our Hearts We Were Giants a dwarf family s survival of the Holocaust, and Lover of Unreason the life and tragic death of Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes doomed love.

About this edition

• Publisher: JR Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1906779198
• ISBN 13: 9781906779191
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 526