John Morley's claim to a prominent place among British reform writers of the later nineteenth century rests mainly on his position as editor of and chief contributor to the Fortnightly Review between 1867 and 1882, its period of greatest influence as the leading radical intellectual journal in England.

He was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in the heart of the cotton-manufacturing region. His father, an ambitious Yorkshire-born surgeon who left Methodism for the Church of England, intended that his son become a clergyman. Morley won a scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford, but had to graduate without an honors degree because his father withdrew all support on learning that Morley had decided he could not take holy orders. Forced to support himself, Morley came to London and soon found a well-paid journalistic position as a contributor of sententious, politically innocuous editorials for the conservative, intellectual Saturday Review. Ambitious, energetic, and personable, he...