The Victorian campaigning journalist Bob threads into the session's Victorian detour — the editor whose 1885 exposés of child prostitution scandalized and helped reform London before he drowned on the Titanic. Bob uses him as the figure standing at the hinge between the buttoned-up print era and the electric age of "human interest," and as a bridge into Joyce. New to it — start here in dialogue 42.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the Victorian veneer's "final supernova" — the campaigning journalist whose child-prostitution exposé tips London toward reform, read as Bob's hinge from print propriety into the electric "human interest" world, and (via Grace Eckley) a model for the Wake's HCE
Stead as catalyst — the exposé that tipped London toward reform (Bob traces the line all the way to Fabian socialism) and got him jailed in 1885, "the guy who was the catalyst" for cleaning up the Victorian underbelly.
"he's the one who exposed the child prostitution and just child abuse and slavery and all that, and started to change the society of London, which led to Fabian socialism, and people really tried to perfect society even more."
Stead's afterlife in Joyce — "Joyce's hero," and on Grace Eckley's reading a model for Finnegans Wake's HCE, the thread by which Bob folds the reformer into the Wake's cast.
"there's Grace Eckley's books on Finnegans Wake, sees Stead as a major character reference for HCE, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker."
Connections
Joyce's hero and, per Grace Eckley, a character reference for HCE (Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker).