Muckraker

Book excerpt: First rocketing to fame when he 'purchased' a 13-yearold girl as part of a campaign against child prostitution, W. T. Stead was the pioneer of investigative reporting. As criminal convict, Puritan, sex-fanatic, occultist, social reformer and stuntman, Stead's notoriety escalated throughout his life until his tragic death in the Titanic disaster. This book traces the rise and fall of W. T. Stead, from his childhood as the son of a strict Nonconformist minister in Newcastle, to his rapid and Machiavellian career as an influential investigative journalist, and his last years when he was ridiculed as a madman for his devotion to the occult. Stead's campaigns - all conducted with his trademark invincible zeal - are vividly described, ranging from the reform of London slums to denouncing an ex-slave trader who claimed to be the Messiah. A hundred years after his death, author Will Robinson presents new material about Stead's life taken from his personal papers, previously suppressed by his wife, giving us a fuller portrait than ever before of the sensational father of journalistic campaigning.