The Star and ‘Corno di Bassetto’

Abstract

From T. P. O’Connor’s regular column in TP’s and Cassell’s Weekly, 12 July 1924. Thomas Power O’Connor (1848–1929) successfully combined journalism and politics. He entered Parliament in 1880 and represented the same Liverpool constituency from 1885 until his death. He founded a number of papers and journals — the Star, a radical evening paper, being the first. It was launched on 17 January 1888, with Shaw on the editorial staff. Here and elsewhere O’Connor followed Shaw’s version of events (see above, p. 26), but the truth is that Shaw took his own way out of the political impasse by resigning his editorial position after less than a month, on 9 February. He continued to contribute occasional pieces, but though he started to act as second string to the regular music critic, E. Belfort Bax, in August 1888, he did not take over the position until Bax resigned the following February.