CHAPTER XIX

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.