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 & stuntman Steads notoriety escalated throughout his life until his tragic death in the Titanic disaster. This book traces the rise & fall of W. T. Stead from his childhood as the son of a strict Nonconformist minister in Newcastle to his rapid & Machiavellian career as an influential investigative journalist & his last years when he was ridiculed as a madman for his devotion to the occult. Steads 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 Steads 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.