Rachel Beer was both a rebel and a pioneer. In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were still denied the vote, she became the first woman ever to edit a national British newspaper - in fact two, The Sunday Times and The Observer. It was to be over eighty years before another woman took the helm of a Fleet Street paper. However, whilst other female journalists were restricted to frocks, frills and frippery, Rachel managed to raise her formidable voice on national and foreign political issues - including the notorious Dreyfus Affair - as well as on social and women's issues, often controversially. Drawing on a wealth of original material, The First Lady of Fleet Street paints a vivid picture of a remarkable woman and of the times in which she lived. It also provides an important history of two venerable Jewish families, their origins and their rise to eminence.