Rachel Beer was both a rebel and a pioneer. In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were still denied the vote, she became the first woman ever to edit a national British newspaper in fact two, The Sunday Times and The Observer. It was to be over eighty years before another woman took the helm of a Fleet Street paper. However, whilst other female journalists were restricted to frocks, frills and frippery, Rachel managed to raise her formidable voice on national and foreign political issues including the notorious Dreyfus Affair as well as on social and womens issues, often controversially. Drawing on a wealth of original material, The First Lady of Fleet Street paints a vivid picture of a remarkable woman and of the times in which she lived.
