Book description
They were 'Cudlipp' and 'Mr King' when they met in 1935. At 21,
gregarious, extrovert and irreverent Hugh Cudlipp had many years of
journalistic experience: at 34, shy, introspective and solemn Cecil
Harmsworth King, haunted by the ghost of Uncle Alfred, Lord Northcliffe,
the great press magnate, and bitter towards Uncle Harold, Lord
Rothermere of the Daily Mail, was fighting his way up in the family
business. Opposites in most respects, they were complementary in talents
and had in common a deep concern for the underdog. Cudlipp, the
journalistic genius, and King, the formidable intellect, were to become,
in Cudlipp's words, 'the Barnum and Bailey' of Fleet Street; together,
on the foundation of the populist Daily Mirror, they created the biggest
publishing empire in the world. Their relationship foundered
sensationally in 1968, when - as King tried to topple the Prime Minister
- Cudlipp toppled King. Through the story of two extraordinary men, Ruth
Dudley Edwards gives us a riveting portrait of Fleet Street in its
heyday. Ruth Dudley Edwards is an historian, journalist and crime
writer. Her non-fiction includes Victor Gollancz: A Biography (winner of
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), The Pursuit of Reason: The
Economist, 1843-1993 and The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the
Loyal Institutions. Her nine crime novels are satires on the British
Establishment.
