''The World'' was a British weekly paper, published from 1874 to 1920. It was founded by Edmund Hodgson Yates (1831–1894) and E. C. Grenville Murray (1824–1881) and became one of the leading society papers with investigative reports, gossip and an intimate style of journalism. Among its staff and contributors were

William Archer William or Bill Archer may refer to: * William Archer (British politician) (1677–1739), British politician * William S. Archer (1789–1855), U.S. Senator and Representative from Virginia * William Beatty Archer (1793–1870), Illinois politician ...

Wilkie Collins William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for '' The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for '' The Moonstone'' (1868), which has b ...

and

Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

History

Edmund Yates, a novelist, playwright and journalist, returned in March 1873 from a lecture tour in the US from which he had made a substantial sum of money. The following year, while in Paris, he entered into a business partnership with the journalist Grenville Murray, who was effectively in exile from Britain. They founded a new weekly, ''The World: A Journal for Men and Women'', with Yates, based in London, as editor. The first issue was published on 8 July 1874, and the paper flourished. After six months Yates was able to buy out his colleague's share of the partnership; Murray made a profit of almost 1000 per cent on his investment.Edwards, P
"Yates, Edmund Hodgson (1831–1894), journalist and novelist"
"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", retrieved 27 December 2017 In the words of P. D. Edwards in a study of Yates's career, ''The World's'' appeal was: Earlier in his journalistic career Yates had specialised in writing

gossip column A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal li ...

s, and in the new paper he contributed one titled "What the World Says", under the pen name "Atlas". Among the other regular features were a page on art and another on music. The first writer of the art page was

, who was succeeded in 1886 by

. In 1890 Shaw succeeded Louis Engel (known as "the best hated musical critic in Europe") as ''The World's'' music critic; he held the post until 1894.Anderson, Robert
"Shaw, Bernard"
Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 27 December 2017 Yates also printed satirical verse, and a regular feature headed "Feuilleton" which contained instalments of new fiction such as Wilkie Collins's ''The Fallen Leaves''. Among those contributing to the paper's correspondence column were

James Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

and Oscar Wilde. The paper survived a damaging criminal libel prosecution in 1883, which, after the trial and an appeal, resulted in a short prison sentence for Yates (16 January to 10 March 1885). After his sudden death in 1894 two of his sons ran the paper. Yates's widow died in 1900, and in 1905 a controlling interest in ''The World'' was bought by

Alfred Harmsworth Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (15 July 1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the ''Daily Mail'' and the ''Daily Mirror'', he was an early developer of popular journal ...

for £14,000. He hoped to turn it into a competitor for the weekly '' Country Life'', but it met with indifferent success, and ceased publication in 1920." The World: A Journal for Men and Women"
WorldCat, retrieved 27 December 2017Edwards, P. D
"Edmund Yates"
Victorian Fiction Research Guides, retrieved 27 December 2017

Notes

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:World, The Publications established in 1874 1874 establishments in England Publications disestablished in 1920 1920 disestablishments in England