HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO”
OF all the books I have written, none have attracted more attention than
_Who’s Who_.
Various biographical dictionaries of living persons were in existence
before the new _Who’s Who_ appeared in 1897—_Men of the Time_, _People
of the Period_, and so on. But none of them were annual, and none of
them were published at a popular price. I myself had attempted to get a
cheap annual biographical dictionary published, before A. & C. Black
came to me with their proposal about _Who’s Who_. I put the idea into
the hands of a literary agent for sale. It was very much on the lines of
_Who’s Who_, but not on so ambitious a scale, and I thought that Sell,
who has a Press directory, might be likely to buy it. No one did buy it,
and when I told an interviewer, who came to get “copy” out of me about
_Who’s Who_, about it, that agent was wrong-headed enough to think that
I was trying to libel him, instead of trying to claim originality for my
idea.
However that may be, Adam Black, one day, when I was talking to him
about my novel, _A Japanese Marriage_, which A. & C. Black had
published, produced a copy of the old _Who’s Who_, an insignificant
pocket-peerage, of which he had just purchased the rights, and asked if
I could make anything of it for the firm. Having made a synopsis of my
own idea for that literary agent to sell, I had it cut and dry, and it
was settled that I should do the book as soon as the agreement could be
drawn up. As events proved, it was drawn up too hurriedly, for I signed
it without insisting on the clause which has gone into all my other
agreements of the same kind—that, in case the publishers wished to be
released from the agreement because the book was not as successful as
they hoped, the book should become my property. I do not say that the
Blacks would have consented to the insertion of this clause, but it is
certain that I ought never to have signed it without, because I put into
it ideas, whose originality and value has abundantly been proved since.
It was agreed that I should edit it for three years certain, but that if
the book was not successful by then the agreement should terminate. At
the end of the three years, they determined that the book was not a
success, and terminated the agreement. At the time that I wrote this
book there was no one in London with the same knowledge as I had as to
who should be included in the book, because my three years’ work in New
York papers had made me take up biographical journalism—a profession
which did not exist in London till I brought it over from America, and
which never took permanent root in England. In fact, it very soon
withered out of existence.
It is an odd fact that this book in its dried pippin form, which went on
for about half a century before it was expanded, never struck the world
as having a specially good title, till Adam Black recognised its value,
though now its title is regarded as a stroke of genius.
“But how are you going to get the information?” he asked, when I had
detailed my formula for the biographies, much the same as that which is
used for _Who’s Who_ now, with the exception of the details about
telephones and motors, which were not part of English everyday life in
1897, and a few other points which I ought to have thought of.
“I shall make the people themselves give it.”
“But will they ever do it?”
“I think so, if we give them proper forms to fill up, and get a
well-known peer and a well-known commoner to fill up their forms as
specimens before we send the others out.”
“You’ll have to tell them that you’re going to use their biographies as
specimens. I wish nothing to be done of which anybody could complain.”
In the matter of the special stationery provided for the purpose, the
firm were extraordinarily liberal. They only studied attractiveness,
just as they had special type cast for setting up the book because none
of the small types offered to us were sufficiently beautiful. The
selection of the long blue envelopes, opening at the side, has an almost
public interest. Adam Black requested that we should leave the matter of
envelopes over until the following week, when he was to meet Lord
Rosebery on the yacht of his brother-in-law, George Coates. When Lord
Rosebery was asked what kind of envelope he should treat with most
respect in opening his correspondence, Lord Rosebery pronounced in
favour of this particular form of long blue envelope, because it was
used by the Cabinet for their communications. So we adopted it, and the
first persons in official circles who received it may have experienced a
strange flutter of expectation, because we did not in those days, I
think, have the envelopes stamped _Who’s Who_, lest they should defeat
their object of being taken for Cabinet communications.
Then came the question of whom we should invite to write their
biographies to be models for the biographies of other people. I selected
the Duke of Rutland for the peers, and Mr. Balfour for the commoners.
The Duke, both as Lord John Manners and as Duke, had occupied one of the
first places in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. He had filled his
place in the Cabinet with distinction; he had been the typical
aristocrat; his exquisite politeness had helped the democracy to forgive
him for writing “Let Wealth and Commerce ... die. But give us still our
old nobility.”
I wrote to ask him to fill the biographical form, which I had drawn up,
to be the model for other members of the peerage, and with his usual
consideration, he acceded. Then I wrote to Mr. Balfour to ask him to
write his biography, to be a model for the untitled. The only title he
bore was so proud that we usually, as I did then, forget to reckon it
among titles—the “Right Honourable.” Mr. Balfour, too, acceded, and he
was particularly suitable, because, in addition to being the first man
in the House of Commons, recreation had a real meaning in his case,
since he was known to be an inveterate golfer.
The idea of adding “recreations” to the more serious items which had
been included in previous biographical dictionaries was adopted at one
of the councils of war which we used to hold in the partners’ room of A.
& C. Black, at 4 Soho Square. And for selling purposes it proved far and
away the best idea in the whole book, when it was published. The
newspapers were never tired of quoting the recreations of eminent
people, thus giving the book a succession of advertisements of its
readability, and shop-keepers who catered for their various sports
bought the book to get the addresses of the eminent people, who were,
many of them, very indignant at the Niagara of circulars which resulted.
I wonder if many people remember the old _Who’s Who?_—a little red 32mo,
which looked something like the Infantry Manual with its clasp knocked
off. It was a sort of badly kept index to the Peerage, as futile as an
1840 Beauty Book. We turned it into a dictionary of biography for living
people, and we made it eternally interesting by persuading the people
whom we included in it to give us their favourite recreations. I chose
(from an un-annual biographical dictionary edited by Humphry Ward) the
type, which had to be specially cast for it; I chose the people who
deserved to be included in it; I drafted the letters and the forms to be
filled up, which were sent to each person; and I persuaded those two
very eminent men to be the bell-wethers for persuading other people to
fill up their forms, an idea which was crowned with success. The late
Duke of Rutland’s and Mr. Balfour’s fillings up of the forms were
printed at the heads of the forms sent out to other people, and few
people objected to following where they had led the way. But among these
few recalcitrants were Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, and most
naval officers. Army officers, on the other hand, were generally very
obliging. Architects and literary men filled up their forms best,
artists and actresses worst, though actors were almost as bad. You would
have thought that the actual formation of the letters in framing a reply
was a torture to artists, actors and naval officers. The actresses, if
you had compiled the biographies by interview, would have asked for two
columns each.
Many people thought it necessary to write me rude letters, demanding
what right I had to intrude upon their privacy, and ordering me not to
include their names. To one of them, the head of an Oxford College, I
wrote, “Dear Sir, If you had not been head of —— College, no one would
have dreamt of including you, but since you are, you will have to go in
whether you like it or not.”
The late Duke of Devonshire said that his recreation had formerly been
hunting. One man said that he did not see how the ownership of four
hundred and fifty thousand acres made him a public person. A prominent
authoress first of all refused to fill up her form at all. I wrote to
tell her that in that case I should have to fill it up for her. She
showed no concern about this until I sent her a proof of the biography,
in which I made her out ten years older than she really was, and said
that I meant to insert the biography in that form unless there was
anything she wished to correct. She then corrected it, and added so much
that it would have taken the whole column if I had inserted all she
sent.
W. S. Gilbert wrote the rudest letter of anybody. He said he was always
being pestered by unimportant people for information about himself. So I
put him down in the book as “Writer of Verses and the libretti to Sir
Arthur Sullivan’s comic operas.” He then wrote me a letter of about a
thousand words, in which he asked me if that was the way to treat a man
who had written seventy original dramas. Next year he filled up his form
as readily as a peer’s widow who has married a commoner.
Bernard Shaw said in 1897 that his favourite recreations were cycling
and showing off, and informed the world that he was of middle-class
family, was not educated at all “academically,” and coming to London
when he was twenty, for many years could obtain no literary recognition,
even to the extent of employment as a journalist.
But the most humorous experience I had in connection with _Who’s Who_
was when I succeeded in bringing a certain actor-manager to book. He had
repeatedly promised to fill in his form, and failed to do so, when I
found myself next to him at a public dinner to which we had both been
invited. “Why did you not send me that biography?” I asked him, and he
said, “Well, the real reason is that I thought I should have to say how
damned badly I have behaved to my wife.”
The book was a complete literary success; the newspapers gave it column
reviews, chiefly consisting of the unsuitable recreations of prominent
people.
When I edited it, _Who’s Who_ contained a great deal of information
besides the biographies, such as lists of peculiarly pronounced proper
names, keys to the pseudonyms of prominent people, names of the editors
of the principal papers. Some of the real names were so unreasonable
that people wrote to know why they were not included in the lists of
pseudonyms; one of these was Sir Louis Forget.
Ascertaining the correct pronunciation of peculiar names was very
diverting; there was such a divergence of opinion among people of
Scottish birth about words like “Brechin.” I was bewailing their egotism
to the late Lord Southesk, when he said, “I have been collecting
peculiarly pronounced Scottish names and their proper pronunciation for
years. You can have my list.”
I thanked him and gladly inserted them all. A very good friend of mine,
the late Hugh Maclaughlan, who was sub-editor of the _Star and Leader_,
in reviewing the book over his own name, found great fault with my
Cockney pronunciation of the Scottish names. I do not know to this day
whether he was serious, or, as schoolboys say, “pulling my leg,” and in
any case, I did not mind, but Lord Southesk was furious.
“Tell Mr. Maclaughlan,” he said, “that I am the man whom he called a
Cockney, and that my ancestor commanded the Highlanders at the battle of
Harlaw.” Harlaw was the last great battle between the Highlanders and
the Lowlanders, and was fought in the year 1411.
One of the funniest entries in the book was made by a famous authoress,
who wrote in her biography “she is at present unmarried.”
One of the most amusing experiences I had when I was editor of _Who’s
Who_ was my receiving a message from a Mrs. Williams or Williamson,
asking me to call on her upon a matter of great importance. I imagined
that at the very least Queen Victoria (Mrs. Williams was supposed to
have influence in such matters) had deputed her to offer me a
knighthood. At any rate, from the tone of her letter, it ought to have
been a considerable advantage of some sort which was to be bestowed upon
me. I was not much flustered because the lady had not the reputation of
giving anything for nothing. But I own I was rather taken aback when I
was shown into her den, and she said, “I sent for you because Mrs.
Dotheboy Tompkins”—or some such name—nobody of the slightest
importance—“wishes you to put her into _Who’s Who_.”
I said, “The only answer I can give you is that I do not consider Mrs.
Tompkins of sufficient importance. I don’t know how you will break this
to her. Good-afternoon.”
It was such colossal impertinence, her sending for me instead of writing
to me, though that would have been bad enough, that I was determined not
to spare her.
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