Larger-than-life American publisher William Randolph Hearst acquired his first newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in 1886. Over the next two decades, he built a media empire which revolutionized journalism. His dictatorial style and sensational approach to the news generated a fortune as well as controversy. Hearst's seemingly limitless ambition led him to campaign for social reforms, serve in Congress, run for the presidency, famously ignite the Spanish-American war, and become, according to recent biographer Ben Proctor, "arguably the best-known American, not just in the United States but around the world."

In the eyes of many, Hearst personified the American dream. Born to Phoebe Apperson, a Missouri school teacher, and George Hearst, a self-made millionaire miner and rancher, William Randolph Hearst parlayed family support, fierce independence, and a sense for drama into enormous wealth and power. In 1880 his father acquired the Examiner as payment...