William O Connor Popular Books

William O Connor Biography & Facts

Sir William Neil Connor (26 April 1909 – 6 April 1967) was an English newspaper journalist for the Daily Mirror who wrote under the pen name of "Cassandra". Biography William Connor wrote a regular column for over 30 years between 1935 and 1 February 1967 with a short intermission for the Second World War, his column restarting after the war with the words "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, it is a powerful hard thing to please all of the people all of the time." He took his pen-name from Cassandra in Greek mythology, a tragic character who is given the gift of prophecy by Apollo but is then cursed so that no one will ever believe her.The very popular column helped the Mirror's readership to grow to the highest in its history during the 1950s. His columns were simply written, in keeping with his working class readership, and comprised slices of human life, including famous people, events and later a personal diary of his everyday life and thoughts – though at times he could be controversial. He worked alongside cartoonist Philip Zec at the Daily Mirror and the pair courted controversy in 1942 with an illustration, captioned by Connor, which Winston Churchill and others perceived as an attack on government. Churchill complained to Cecil King, then a director of the company, of a writer (Connor) being "dominated by malevolence". Connor forgave Churchill though, and later wrote a moving obituary of the wartime Prime Minister ("Sword in the Scabbard", 25 January 1965) and attended his funeral service at St. Paul's Cathedral. In his best known columns, Connor said the author P. G. Wodehouse was a Nazi collaborator, a charge from which George Orwell defended Wodehouse, and in 1956 he strongly suggested that the entertainer Liberace was a homosexual. The suggestion was true, but Liberace sued for libel (Liberace v Daily Mirror) and won in 1959. During the case both Connor and Liberace lied under oath.According to Roy Greenslade, Connor was "an odd mix of liberal and reactionary", citing for the former his column attacking the enactment of the death sentence delivered to Ruth Ellis due on the day of its publication. He wrote: "The one thing that brings stature and dignity to mankind and raises us above the beasts will have been denied her – pity and the hope of ultimate redemption."In the years leading up to his death, Connor wrote more humorous columns and was regarded with affection by Mirror readers. Subjects ranged from the times he received wrong number calls intended for a nearby railway goods station, to the mysterious person who sent him a fresh goose egg once a year. Connor was knighted in 1966. His final column ended with the words "Normal service in this column is temporarily interrupted while I learn to do what any babe can do with ease and what comes naturally to most men of good conscience – to sleep easily o' nights." He died aged 57 in hospital, a month after fracturing his skull in a fall.Since his death, the column Cassandra in the Daily Mirror has continued to be sporadically published. A new columnist, Keith Waterhouse, took over Connor's place in the newspaper, but not his byline. References External links "The Press: Cassandra of the Mirror", Time, 11 October 1954 Cassandra, includes Connor's Cassandra's Cats book and various photos. Crying All The Way To The Bank at Amazon.co.uk Cassandra At His Finest And Funniest at Amazon.co.uk. Discover the William O Connor popular books. Find the top 100 most popular William O Connor books.

Best Seller William O Connor Books of 2024

  • Dead Big Dawg synopsis, comments

    Dead Big Dawg

    Victoria Houston

    Murder, She Wrote meets Fargo in the Northwoods of Wisconsin in the nineteenth “gripping, atmospheric, and smart” (T. Jefferson Parker, New York Times bestselling author) installme...

  • Sulfur Springs synopsis, comments

    Sulfur Springs

    William Kent Krueger

    The New York Times bestselling author of Ordinary Grace weaves a vivid and pulsepounding thriller that follows Cork O’Connor’s search for a missing man amid the fraught tensions at...

  • Great Irish Reportage synopsis, comments

    Great Irish Reportage

    John Horgan

    Reports and dispatches from Ireland's finest writers: the firstever anthology of Irish reportage.Alongside its worldfamous tradition of great fiction, Ireland has a less well known...

  • My Own Words synopsis, comments

    My Own Words

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    The New York Times bestselling book from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg“a comprehensive look inside her brilliantly analytical, entertainingly wry mind, revealing the fa...

  • Ordinary Grace synopsis, comments

    Ordinary Grace

    William Kent Krueger

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL WINNER OF THE 2014 DILYS AWARD A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2013From New York Times bestselling aut...

  • Crash Dive synopsis, comments

    Crash Dive

    Larry Bond

    Edited by bestselling author Larry Bond, Crash Dive collects the best nonfiction writing on submarines, the nearsilent killers of the deep and their crews. They are the ultimate u...

  • Mrs. Robert O. Wilson v. William A. Oconnor synopsis, comments

    Mrs. Robert O. Wilson v. William A. Oconnor

    Dallas the Fifth Court of Civil Appeals

    This is an appeal by Mrs. Robert O. Wilson, defendantlandlady, from an adverse judgment rendered against her and in favor of her former tenant, William A. OConnor, based on TEX.REV...

  • A Sharp Solitude synopsis, comments

    A Sharp Solitude

    Christine Carbo

    A gripping new mystery from the “fresh new voice in the thriller genre” (Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author) and author of The Wild Inside, set in the magnificent and b...

  • After the Parade synopsis, comments

    After the Parade

    Lori Ostlund

    The debut novel from awardwinning author Lori Ostlund“smart, resonant, and imbued with beauty” (Publishers Weekly) that “provides considerable pleasure and emotional power” (The Ne...

  • The Brethren synopsis, comments

    The Brethren

    Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong

    The Brethren is the first detailed behindthescenes account of the Supreme Court in action.Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view...

  • Becoming RBG synopsis, comments

    Becoming RBG

    Debbie Levy

    From the New York Times bestselling author of I Dissent comes a biographical graphic novel about celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Supreme Court justice Ruth Bad...

  • The Bigness of the World synopsis, comments

    The Bigness of the World

    Lori Ostlund

    Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize, the Edmund White Award, and the California Book Award, Lori Ostlund’s “heartbreaking and wonderful” (Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Ru...

  • The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works synopsis, comments

    The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works

    Thomas Nashe & J. Steane

    Written in the late sixteenth century, at the pinnacle of the English Renaissance, the rich and ingenious works of Thomas Nashe uniquely reveal the ambivant nature of the Elizabeth...

  • Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue synopsis, comments

    Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Amanda L. Tyler

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final book offers an intimate look at her extraordinary life and details her lifelong pursuit for gender equality and a “more perfect Union.”In the fall of 20...

  • Rue Marquis De Sade synopsis, comments

    Rue Marquis De Sade

    Morgana Baron

    As Charlotte travels to Europe to claim her share of her father's legacy, her thoughts turn inevitably to Veronica, her sensual, sadistic stepsister, whom she will be seeing again ...

  • Windigo Island synopsis, comments

    Windigo Island

    William Kent Krueger

    Cork O’Connor battles vicious villains, both mythical and modern, to rescue a young girl in this riveting mystery from New York Times bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author Willia...

  • Dinners with Ruth synopsis, comments

    Dinners with Ruth

    Nina Totenberg

    Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and lifeaffirming relationships, including her beautiful friendsh...

  • Complete Western Romance of William MacLeod Raine synopsis, comments

    Complete Western Romance of William MacLeod Raine

    William Raine

    He was awarded an M.L. degree from the University of Colorado where he had established that school's first journalism course. During the First World War 500,000 copies of one of hi...

  • William P. Oconnor v. State Indiana synopsis, comments

    William P. Oconnor v. State Indiana

    Supreme Court Of Indiana

    Defendant Miller Brewing Co. appeals the judgment of the Monroe Superior Court awarding plaintiff Best Beers of Bloomington, Inc. $397,000.00 in compensatory damages and $1,989,260...

  • Look Homeward, Angel synopsis, comments

    Look Homeward, Angel

    Thomas Wolfe

    The spectacular, historymaking first novel about a young man’s coming of age by literary legend Thomas Wolfe, first published in 1929 and long considered a classic of twentieth cen...

  • Chanter synopsis, comments

    Chanter

    William O'Connor

    Poetry originally published on webblogsite: http://www.hearthealingthechariotway.blogsite.com by William O'Connor

  • Writers synopsis, comments

    Writers

    Barry Gifford

    In Writers, great American storyteller Barry Gifford paints portraits of famous writers caught in imaginary vulnerable moments in their lives. In prose that is funny, grotesque, an...

  • Scalia synopsis, comments

    Scalia

    Bruce Allen Murphy

    “[Murphy’s] biography of Justice Scalia is patient and thorough, alive both intellectually and morally….Functions as an MRI scan of one of the most influential conservative thinker...

  • I Dissent synopsis, comments

    I Dissent

    Debbie Levy

    Get to know celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgin the first picture book about her lifeas she proves that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable!Supreme Court ...

  • Manitou Canyon synopsis, comments

    Manitou Canyon

    William Kent Krueger

    In the extraordinary new Cork O’Connor thriller from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author William Kent Krueger, the lives of hundreds of innocent people are at...

  • Rellotge sense agulles synopsis, comments

    Rellotge sense agulles

    Carson McCullers

    "La millor escriptora que ha donat el sud dels Estats Units", Tennessee Williams Rellotge sense agulles és l'última novel·la de Carson McCullers, publicada l'any 1961, pocs anys ab...

  • Handing One Another Along synopsis, comments

    Handing One Another Along

    Robert Coles, Trevor Hall & Vicki Kennedy

    In this book on shaping a meaningful and ethical life, the renowned, Pulitzer Prize–winning author explores how character, courage, and human and moral understanding can be fostere...

  • The Modern Library synopsis, comments

    The Modern Library

    Carmen Callil & Colm Tóibín

    For Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their sele...

  • Revelations of Divine Love synopsis, comments

    Revelations of Divine Love

    Julian of Norwich & Dr Elizabeth Spearing

    Coming from a society where women were barred from serious writing and teaching, Julian, an anchorite of the great medieval city of Norwich, nevertheless uses her womanlines and th...

  • William Oconnor v. State Indiana synopsis, comments

    William Oconnor v. State Indiana

    Supreme Court Of Indiana

    The appellant William OConnor was charged with second degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the cause for a new trial. I...

  • William Oconnor Et Al. v. City New York synopsis, comments

    William Oconnor Et Al. v. City New York

    Court of Appeals of New York

    This appeal presents the question whether a municipality may be held liable for its inspectors failure to discover a leak in a gas system that ultimately caused an explosion. Inasm...