The Link by Annie Besant and William T. Stead first issue 1888

BESANT (ANNIE) and STEAD (WILLIAM T.). The Link: A Journal for the Servants of Man. No. 1 (Saturday, February 4, 1888). London: Printed and published for the Proprietor by A. Bonner, 34 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C. [1888].     
 
Folio (c. 390 × 260 mm). 4 pp., printed in double columns. Slight creasing and short marginal tears and loss, a short tear to the left-hand side of the front page, small splits at old folds, but a well-preserved copy of a fragile and ephemeral publication.
 
First issue of this short-lived socialist and humanitarian weekly founded by Annie Besant (1847–1933) in collaboration with the reforming journalist William T. Stead (1849–1912). Conceived as a mouthpiece for the Law and Liberty League and for radical social reform, The Link was intended to unite working-class readers, secularists, and ethical socialists in what Besant called “the service of man.”
 
The leading editorial, “To Our Fellow Servants,” is signed jointly by Besant and Stead, announcing the paper’s founding purpose “to place all those who are ready to stand in the breach when the interests of the poor are endangered.” There is an article inside called “Strong Resolution” condemning the treatment of political prisoners in London and Ireland. The issue also has printed “The Army of the Commonweal” by Edith Nesbit.
 
Although The Link lasted only a few months, Besant used its early numbers to campaign for free speech, to publicise the trials of trade unionists and secularists, and to argue for women’s equality before the law—continuing themes from her work with Charles Bradlaugh on the National Reformer. Within a year she would channel the same network of readers and printers into her activism for the Matchgirls’ Strike of 1888, one of the first great victories of organised women workers.