Frank (Nelson) Doubleday

Publisher, born in New York City, USA. He left school to work for the publisher Charles Scribner's, becoming manager of the new Scribner's Magazine (1886). He went on to co-found the Doubleday & McClure Co (1900), then expanded his interests, establishing the Country Life Press and opening a chain of bookshops. His company eventually became Doubleday & Co.

His most significant achievement was as founder and eponym of Doubleday &

Frank Doubleday was a native of Brooklyn, New York, the son of a hatter. When Doubleday was 14, his father's business failed, and he was forced to leave school and find a full-time job. Doubleday spent eighteen years at Scribner's, eventually rising to become the publisher of Scribner's Magazine and head of Scribner's subscription book department.

When Doubleday's relationship with J. McClure, publisher of McClure's Magazine, to form the Doubleday & The following year, Doubleday and McClure accepted a contract to manage the great publishing house of Harper & On taking control, Doubleday dug thoroughly through Harper's books and decided that the company's finances were in a shambles, and Doubleday convinced McClure and Morgan to call off the deal. (Harper had gone heavily into debt in the Panic of 1893, and the extension of copyright to foreign authors in 1891 put a large dent in Harper's principal business, cheap domestic reprints of respected foreign authors.)

On December 31, 1899, growing tension between Doubleday and McClure led the two men to dissolve their partnership. The following year, Doubleday invited Walter Hines Page, former editor of The Atlantic Monthly, to join him; the new firm was Doubleday, Page &

In 1921, Doubleday bought a controlling interest in the English publisher William Heinemann, after the eponymous senior partner died in a freak bedroom accident. In 1927, Doubleday purchased the publishing house of George H. Doran, and the company became Doubleday, Doran &

Doubleday was twice married, first to Neltje De Graff, and then to Florence (birth name unknown). An anglophile, Frank Doubleday spent many working vacations in England looking to sign up authors and publishers for U.S. editions.