Frank N. Doubleday

Until his long illness began about eight years ago, Frank Nelson Doubleday was among the most regular visitors at the Century—even after his publishing firm moved from New York City to Long Island back in 1910. He had been a member of the club since 1896. A pioneer in advocating suburban plants for publishing and printing, he lived to see his ideas adopted widely. At Garden City he proved to his own satisfaction that plenty of light and fresh air, even in the recesses of the pressrooms, kept the working staff contented, increased their efficiency and sustained the morale of the enterprise.

Doubleday’s genius for friendship was his most ingratiating quality. With his one-time partner, Walter Hines Page, his relations were affectionately close up to the last; Page’s published letters to Doubleday from the Embassy at London are proof of it. Kipling, Conrad, Booth Tarkington and O. Henry considered him first as friend and counselor, only in a secondary way as publisher. With his working staff, he always managed to maintain discipline without formality. Not infrequently he would appear at the desk of some department head or lesser worker, in the middle of a working day, to say, “You’ve been around here long enough, let’s go and have a round of golf.” Into the game he plunged as enthusiastically as he had done in earlier days with tennis and swimming. “Effendi”—he was known by that title after Rudyard Kipling fashioned it from his initials—found pleasure in so many different ways that none of them could be called a hobby. The same thing could be said of his conversation. Every guest who passed through Doubleday’s hospitable door went away convinced that his own favorite topic was the one in which Doubleday was himself most interested.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1935 Century Association Yearbook