Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass English Publications Dept. of English 2020 Letters from the “Gentlemen of the Press,” 1810-1845 David E. Latane Virginia Commonwealth University,
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[email protected]. Letters from the “Gentlemen of the Press,” 1810-1845 David E. Latané Virginia Commonwealth University In John Wilson Croker: Irish Ideas and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1800-1835, Robert Portsmouth analyzes the way in which the newspaper press was manipulated via interlocking circles of journalists and politicians during the era of Reform. In addition to Croker, one of the important figures in the Tory press was his fellow Irishman William Maginn, and it was in the course of researching and writing William Maginn and the British Press: A Critical Biography (Ashgate, 2013) that I began collecting letters to and from members of the press. The letters presented here help reveal the shape of relationships that prevailed on Fleet Street at the cusp of the Victorian era. A quick note dashed off by legendary Times editor Thomas Barnes, for instance, to John Wilson Croker shows how careful Barnes was, even as his paper was supporting the Whigs, to avoid offense to a powerful Tory politician and Quarterly reviewer.