Northcliffe: Press Baron in Politics

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The life of Lord Northcliffe, creator of Britain's first mass market paper the Daily Mail, was a mixture of brilliance and tragedy. Born in 1865 into a family of modest means, he was earning a ducal income by the time he was thirty and by 1914 was the owner not only of the Mail but also of The Times, the Observer, and the Daily Mirror. A master of propaganda, he used his influence to enhance Britain's image in her colonies and to gain support from America in fighting the First World War. He was on intimate terms with most of the political leaders of his time, including Salisbury, Balfour and Churchill, and contributed to Lloyd George's wartime success, though the two finally fell out. But after the war his mental and physical health collapsed, and he ended his days bizarrely, confined in a wooden cabin on the roof of the Duke of Devonshire's London house.

Northcliffe, according to the writer Norman Angell, possessed 'the common mind to an uncommon degree' and as a press man he was unrivalled - the formula he created for the Daily Mail is still a winner. But like many self-made men he was a difficult character, and by the end of his life his enemies were legion. J. Lee Thompson's book, written with full access to family, business and political archives, cuts through the myth and misrepresentation to give us the first objective assessment of both the private man and the public figure.