History

Sterling Kildare entered the world on a brisk autumn morning in the year 1845, born in a narrow tenement above a shop. From the open bedside window, the air was heavy with the scent of chimney smoke and the muffled clangour of a city that never stopped grinding. His father, Ezra, was a bookbinder of quiet discipline; his mother, Ada, once a schoolteacher, had surrendered her occupation to marriage and ill health. Although their household lacked wealth, it did not when it came to wisdom, and books were the one luxury they refused to do without.

Sterling’s early life unfolded with his father teaching him how to trim pages before he could write a sentence. Yet, it was his mother’s influence that lingered—she filled his young mind with revolutionary poetry and literature between her coughing fits. When Ada succumbed to her illness in the winter of 1858, a thirteen-year-old Sterling left school and entered the printing trade, exchanging his lessons for labour. Still, he read anything he could get his hands on by candlelight: serials, spiritual tracts, copies of Blake, Shelley and Byron.

In the back rooms of print shops and discarded pamphlets, Sterling encountered echoes of the Chartist movement. Though the People’s Charter had not prevailed in Parliament, its ideals clung to those who had marched, debated, and dreamed. Men who had once stood in the streets demanding political reform, such as his father, now hunched over glue, type cases and whiskey, but they still spoke with fire in their veins. These were the men who shaped Sterling’s vision of justice and society—typesetters and dock-hands, not aristocrats or bishops.

Years passed and Sterling became known for being a deft compositor and as a man of sharper opinions. A scuffle with a superior over the censorship of a controversial pamphlet nearly ended his career, but miraculously, his job was left unscathed. Not the same could be said about his perception of reality. By his mid-twenties, he had taken to writing in the margins of his proof sheets: thoughts, arguments and critiques. He had the makings of an editor long before he wore the title.

Romance came only once, and briefly. Estelle Stevens—clever, quick-witted and drawn to Sterling’s thoughtful quiet inherited from his father. They shared a love for Whitman and Gaskell, enjoyed long walks through Central London. But in 1871, her family left London for Liverpool, and their promised letters slowed, then stopped. Sterling never pursued anyone else. Some say he buried himself in work to forget her. Others believe he simply loved solitude more than companionship.

In his thirties, Sterling found himself at the helm of a short-lived radical weekly funded by an individual with too many ideals and not enough capital. The venture failed, but his reputation as a strong editorial hand spread. By 1880, through the mixture of grit, luck and connections made in the printing houses, he acquired the role of editor at The London Review.

As editor, he is unyielding in matters of quality and ethics but understands that a paper must breathe to survive. That means balancing serious political commentary with art reviews and the occasional sensational headline; having a sharp bite while always cloaked just enough to slip past the censors. The Review cannot afford to be dull, nor can it risk being sued.

In the offices of The London Review, Sterling is known for his relentless, but quiet, presence. He always arrives before the morning fog lifts. He drinks strong tea, edits with a pencil sharpened and speaks in measured tones. He does not abide frivolity, but he does value passion. Young writers know him as fair but exacting, the kind of editor who will rip your article apart only to help you rebuild it stronger. He does not flatter, but he does praise when it is due and earned. His staff either respects him too much, or fears him too slightly.

Sterling Kildare will never be a household name, nor does he wish it to be. He seeks no title, no peerage, no statue in a park. What he wants is more elusive: a well-run paper, an honest conversation and a small place in history’s footnotes as a man who tried to make things just a bit better.

And every morning, as he opens the Review’s door, he knows he is exactly where he is meant to be.