Northcliffe: The Facts.

8vo: 334 pp. Portrait of Northcliffe as frontispiece. Three facsimiles of letters in text and fold-out with facsimiles of three of Northcliffe's letters. Inscribed by Owen on front pastedown 'To Elaine from Louise and Northcliffe. | Nov. 1938'. (The reference to 'Northcliffe' is explained by the fact that Owen considered herself a spirit medium, in contact with the deceased Viscount.) Internally good: sound and tight, on lightly aged paper. In original worn red cloth, with slight bloom on front. A quirky and idiosyncratic account of a court case brought against Northcliffe's brother Viscount Rothermere by Northcliffe's 'dear Lulu', the woman who acted as Northcliffe's secretary for the last twenty years of his life. Owen claims that Northclifffe described her as 'one of the most influential women in Europe' ('Yes, it is true. I am guided by your decisions and opinions, and I rely upon your advice and judgment because I know they are honest and without prejudice.') According to Time magazine, in the £1,200,000 suit in Chancery, 'Miss Owen charged that Lord Rothermere, as an executor of the Northcliffe estate, virtually sold to himself control of the Daily Mail Trust, in 1922, at four pounds a share, whereas the shares were allegedly worth seven pounds. She asked, as one of the Northcliffe heirs, that this sale be now set aside, a step which would unbalance the whole newspaper structure of England.' The case was settled out of court.