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Northcliffeiana.

At the War, by Lord Northcliffe (Hodder, 1916, 288 pages). Dedication: To my mother. Handwritten name inside: Sir E.Laurie, 1916.

The Real Lord Northcliffe, by Louise Owen (Cassell, 1922, 52 pages). Signed by the author.

My Journey Round The World (July 16, 1921 – February 26, 1922), by Lord Northcliffe, edited after his death by Cecil and St John Harmsworth (John Lane, 1923, reprinted 1924, 326 pages).

Northcliffe’s Return, by Hannen Swaffer, introduction by Lord Beaverbrook (Hutchinson, 1925, 286 pages). Swaffer’s reports, after his conversion to spiritualism, of séance messages from the late Lord Northcliffe, who was apparently worried about the running of the Daily Mail.

Northcliffe: The Facts, by Louise Owen (published by the author, 1931, 334 pages). Signed by the author, to Lord Beaverbrook, from the Beaverbrook Library.

Warnings and Predictions, by Viscount Rothermere (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939, 221 pages). From the Beaverbrook Library.

Northcliffe, by Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth (Cassell, 1959, 933 pages, illustrated).

The House of Northcliffe: The Harmsworths of Fleet Street, by Paul Ferris (Weidenfeld, 1971, 340 pages, illustrated).

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The Press Album, ed Thomas Catling, in aid of the Journalists’ Orphan Fund (Murray, 1909, 224 pages, illustrated).

Memorial to Horace Greeley, ed James Austin Holden, New York State Historian (published New York State Library, Albany, 1915, 263 pages, illustrated).

Journalism from A to Z, by Low Warren, introduction by Alan Pitt Robbins, formerly News Editor of the Times (Herbert Joseph, 1923, revised edition 1931. ExLibris. Illustrated, 349 pages).

A History of English Journalism (to the foundation of the Gazette), by J.B. Williams (Longmans, Green, 1908. Ex Libris. Illustrated, 293 pages).

Lewd, Blasphemous and Obscene (being the trials and tribulations of sundry Founding Fathers of today’s alternative societies, by Arthur Calder-Marshall (Hutchinson, publisher’s uncorrected proof copy, provisional date May 22, 1972. Illustrated, 232 pages).

Libertine Literature in England, 1660-1745, by David Foxon (University Books, New York, 1965, 70 pages, 13 plates).

Poor Men’s Guardians: The struggle for a democratic newspaper press, 1763-1973, by Stanley Harrison (Lawrence & Wishart, 1974, paper, 256 pages, illustrated).

The Story of the Daily Worker, by William Rust (People’s Press Printing Society, paper, 1949, 128 pages). William Rust was the first editor of the Daily Worker. When he died in February 1949 he had written the first six chapters of this book, up to the story of the war.

It was edited and completed by G. Allen Hutt (who edited the NUJ’s paper, The Journalist, for several years – with the part-time assistance at one stage of the young Jim Brennan, then a sub-editor at The Times and lodging with Hutt and his wife).

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Guardiana

C.P.Scott of the Manchester Guardian, by J.L.Hammond (Bell, 1934, 365 pages).

C.P. Scott: The Making of the Manchester Guardian, 1846-1932, foreword by Sir William Haley (Muller,1946, 252 pages, illustrated).

Changing Faces: A history of the Guardian, 1956-88, by Geoffrey Taylor (Fourth Estate, 1993. Illustrated, 354 pages).

Picture Palace, a novel, by Malcolm Muggeridge, introduction by Richard Ingrams (Weidenfeld 1934; this edition 1987, 206 pages). Based on Muggeridge’s experience as a staffer on the Guardian. From Ingrams’s introduction: “Although it was published and review copies sent out (1934) they were almost immediately withdrawn following legal action by Malcolm’s former employers…” After his early excitement in arriving at what he thought his spiritual home, Muggeridge began to see Scott as “an archetypal baddie – the high-minded agnostic Liberal believing in progress and shutting his eyes to the cruelty and corruption that invariably accompany the exercise of political power..” (This interpretation may be simply a touch of the old bile in Ingrams. – JB)

Also The Political Diaries of C.P. Scott; Guardian: Biography of a Newspaper, by David Ayerst, and more, including several issues of the Bedside Guardian.

Roy Thomson of Fleet Street, by Russell Braddon (Collins, 1965, 397 pages, illustrated). The obituary of Lord Thomson of Fleet in the Times, on August 8, 1976, was headlined “A great newspaper owner who sought profit, not power.” Braddon explains how he got there.

The Thomson Empire, by Susan Goldenberg (Sidgwick & Jackson, 260 pages; first published in Canada 1984) .

Growing up on the Times: An Autobiography, by Louis Heren (Hamish Hamilton, 1978, 319 pages). Heren joined the Times as a messenger boy, 1934, and by 1947, after seven years in the army, was appointed foreign correspondent. “This book is about my years as a foreign correspondent of the Times. It is not a history of events which shaped and occasionally shook the world between 1947 and 1970, but a very personal account of the fun, adventures and the growing up of one fortunate correspondent who travelled the world with his family on an expense account…” On the journalist’s role, he writes: “Scott of the old Manchester Guardian said that comment is free. As with much other high-minded dicta, this was mealy-mouthed cant. Comment is indeed free, which was probably one reason why Scott wrote so much of it…”

The Power of the Press, by Louis Heren (Orbis, 1985, 208 pages). From the targets of Baldwin’s charge in 1931 about power-seeking proprietors and “the prerogative of the harlot,” to Beaverbrook and Rothermere, and later to Murdoch’s takeover of theTimes, and Maxwell’s arrival at the Mirror, to W.R.Hearst and Colonel Robert McCormick and others, Heren describes their misdemeanors. He concludes: “A free press, despite its occasionally misguided ways, is a vital component of any democracy. It has proved to be a far abler watchdog of the rights of the individual and the behaviour of governments than the new medias of television and radio.”

Gentlemen of the Press: Memories and Friendships of Forty Years, by W.Hutcheon (Murray, 1933, 239 pages). From his preface: “There are some Gentlemen of the Press who have never been in Fleet Street… My own 40 years have been divided almost equally between London and ‘the provinces’ (begun at) Aberdeen and ended in London, but there were long and important waits of seven years in Bradford and 10 in Manchester...It so fell out, however, that by the few hundred yards that separate St Clement’s Dane from Temple Bar I have never for even one day worked in Fleet Street…”

Confessions of a Journalist, by Chris Healy (Chatto & Windus, 1904, 383 pages).

George Seldes:

The Truth Behind the News, 1918-1928, by George Seldes (Faber, 1929, 355 pages). Dedicated “To my father, George S. Seldes, Librarian.”

Lords of the Press, by George Seldes (Julian Messner Inc., 1938: eighth printing 1946, 408 pages). Dedicated “To the American Newspaper Guild and others interested in a free press.”

Never Tire of Protesting, by George Seldes (Lyle Stuart Inc., 1968, 288 pages). “The story of the life and death of the courageous newsletter, In Fact, which he co-founded and edited……..includes personal reminiscences and judgments of Heywood Broun, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Press Lords and the Guild reporters, the Communist Party and the John Birch Society, the role of the Vatican in world affairs, the tobacco-and-death, cigarette-and-cancer story” and much more.

Spilt Ink, by Wareham Smith (Benn, 1932, illustrated, 281 pages). Addressed always as “Wareham” by the Chief, Lord Northcliffe, the author started on the Daily Mail as a clerk in the advertising department, at 25s a week, became advertising manager, then advertisement director of Associated Newspapers with a seat on the board. (Observers today will have noted that many executives in the group began in the advertising department rather than in editorial) As a result of nervous strain and overwork he suffered a blood-pressure stroke. In 1921 , aged 47, he was called in by the Chief, who said: “Wareham, I have consulted my doctor about your health. He tells me that you may die at any moment, and I don’t want you to die on my doorstep. He says that, with care, you may live quite a long time. In your interest, therefore, I propose to retire you and make provision for your future comfort. Talk to Caird about it. Good-bye, my dear Wareham.” The author notes, June 1921: “I remember thinking, as I left the room, You never know, I may last you out.” Northcliffe died the following year.

With the Dictators of Fleet Street: The autobiography of an ignorant journalist, by Russell Stannard (Hutchinson, 1934, 287 pages, illustrated).

Roaring Century, by R.J. Cruikshank (Hamish Hamilton, 1946, 280 pages, illustrated). The story of the Daily News, from its first issue, January 21, 1846, with Charles Dickens as editor.

Journalism for Women, by Molly Graham (Werner Laurie, 1949, 137 pages). How to write and place articles.

The Life and Good Times of William Randolph Hearst, by John Tebbel (Gollancz, 1953, 386 pages).

Drum: A venture into the new Africa, by Anthony Sampson (Collins, 1956, 256 pages, illustrated). “The odd beginnings of an African magazine in South Africa called Drum, of which I was editor for three and a half years....My unusual job, of being white editor of a black paper… able to penetrate behind the high wall of apartheid…”

Dangerous Estate: The anatomy of newspapers, by Francis Williams (Longmans, Green, 1957, 304 pages).

Joe McCarthy and the Press, by Edwin R.Bayley (University of Wisconsin Press, 1981, 270 pages). Ed Bayley’s account of a shameful period in modern American history – and of its lapdog press for much of that time.

Eye-Opener Bob: The story of Bob Edwards, by Grant MacEwan (Institute of Applied Art, Edmonton, Alberta, 1957, 227 pages). Bob Edwards was founder, publisher, and one-man staff of the Calgary Eye-Opener: “Even after his death in 1922, arguments about his qualities continued to rage…He was no Puritan and nobody considered him a shining example of virtue…He drank too much whiskey, as he admitted readily; he wrote some editorial rubbish, and he recorded a few stories which should have been omitted from the columns of his famous paper, but his heart was big, his mind was clear…”

Of This Our Time: A journalist’s story 1905-1950, by Tom Hopkinson (Hutchinson, 1982, illustrated, 317 pages). Tom’s many friends will appreciate this (says JB, one of them, and not because he’s mentioned in the foreword…).

A Jubilee History: The National Union of Journalists, by Clement J. Bundock (Published by the NUJ, 1957, 254 pages). Clem Bundock, a former general secretary, records that: “In half a century the working journalists of Britain have risen from the dubious status of sweated shabby gentility – with 25s a week as a provincial reporter’s wage – to their present position as a central link in the powerful chain of the newspaper industry….”

Journals:

These include Media Culture and Society, Vol 1 No 1, January 1979 (Vol 1, four issues, on offer). Note the introduction to the new journal (and mission statement) by the editor, James Curran. Available:Vol 1, Nos 1-4; Vol 2, No 1; Vol 6 No 3, July 1984. All six in one lot, £20.

Many of these books are like old friends. There are100 or so more, from rare old ones to new ones, though not yet catalogued. Inspection possible for serious inquirers, by arrangement, and offers for individual books invited. Watch this space – the list is to be completed, when time ! James Brennan.

All book inquiries to brenmedia@btinternet.com

Global Journalism Review