For newspaper historians, this week’s Economist retells the hoary but entertaining story of Queen Caroline and the popular press. It’s a story of royal shenanigans and radicals, starring William Cobbett as an ethical Piers Morgan.

Suffolk police had been to Jubilee Close, where Tom Stephens lives, back on November 22. They searched his house till lunchtime. Nearly a month later, on December 17, the Sunday Mirror‘s Michael Duffy interviewed Stephens. Now Stephens has been arrested on suspicion of murdering five women. Stephens had a public profile on MySpace, revealing a…

Rediscovered the Richard Jefferies anthology Landscape with Figures, selected by Richard Mabey. Jefferies was a Victorian essayist and journalist. The collection features One of the New Voters. It was written in 1884, when the English franchise had been further extended to agricultural workers, like the harvest reaper that the essay sketches. If you like great…