Doubleday was born on January 8, 1862 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of William Edwards and Ellen M. (Dickinson) Doubleday. He was the sixth of seven sons in a family of eight children. His father, a great-great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards, born at Binghamton, New York, became a merchant in New York City; his mother was the daughter of Horace Dickinson of Montreal, owner of the first steamboat to run the St. Lawrence Rapids.
Doubleday attended the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Doubleday left the institute at the age of fifteen to enter the employment of Charles Scribner's Sons. He had already operated a profitable job-printing plant at his home. He remained with Scribner's for twenty years. While he was there, he refounded and edited The Book Buyer (1884) and was made manager of Scribner's Magazine when it was established in 1887.
He left the house of Scribner and founded with Samuel Sidney McClure the publishing firm of Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897. In 1899 he took as partners, Walter Hines Page, and William H. Lanier, son of Sidney Lanier, John Leslie Thompson, and Samuel A. Everitt, and organized the firm of Doubleday, Page & Company in 1900. This was the name of the firm until 1927 when it absorbed the George H. Doran Company (founded in 1908) to form Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. He was president until 1927, and chairman of the board of directors subsequent to that time. In November 1900 Doubleday with Walter Hines Page founded World's Work, a monthly magazine devoted to politics and practical affairs, with Page as editor until 1913. This magazine dealt primarily with educational, agricultural, and industrial conditions, especially in the South. Other magazines which the firm published were Country Life in America, Garden and Home Builder (which later developed into American Home), Short Stories, West, and Frontier. In 1910 the publishing house was moved to Garden City, Long Island.
In February 1923 a subsidiary organization was instituted known as the Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. Other subsidiaries were Doubleday, Doran Book Shops, Inc. , the Crime Club, Inc. , Doubleday, Doran & Company (Canada) Ltd. , and The Sun Dial Press, Inc. In 1920, Doubleday happened to be in England when William Heinemann died. Being appealed to by Heinemann's partner, Sydney S. Pawling, he acquired on behalf of his company the controlling interest in William Heinemann of London, and within the next eighteen months, on the death of Pawling, acquired the full interest in that company. He was largely responsible for the beautiful plant at Kingswood, Surrey, and Heinemann's became the first English publishing house to move to the country.
During its first year Doubleday & McClure published books by Frank Norris, Henry George, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Hamlin Garland, and Kipling's The Day's Work. Between Kipling and Doubleday there sprang up a friendship which lasted through life. During the period in 1899 when Kipling was desperately ill in New York, it was Doubleday who was in constant attendance and contributed greatly to the comfort of the distinguished visitor. He was the publisher of Joseph Conrad, of whom he said, "I liked the things he wrote, so I thought he was worth a gamble. I financed him, and he was worth it. " Other authors on his list were Gene Stratton Porter, O. Henry, Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis, Ellen Glasgow, Edna Ferber, and Kathleen Norris. At Scribner's he first found expression for his desire to make attractive complete works of English authors and with the assistance of Walter Gilliss was responsible for some handsome editions. At the Garden City Press was printed under his personal attention the definitive limited Vailima Edition of Stevenson with the imprint of Scribner's in this country and Heinemann in England. Among the memories of many authors, editors, and publishers are the luncheons in the dining-room of the plant at Garden City, walks in the gardens, and hours of good talk in the spacious office of the interesting and interested president.
Doubleday died on January 30, 1934, in Miami, Florida.
Doubleday was an unusual combination of businessman and lover of books. He was not only admired as a distinguished publisher but was much beloved.
On June 9, 1886, Doubleday married Neltje De Graff, who under the name of Neltje Blanchan wrote several books on birds, wild flowers, and gardening, and had a great influence in the publishing of books on the outdoors. She died February 21, 1918, and on November 27, 1918, he married Florence Van Wyck. Besides his wife he was survived by one daughter, Dorothy, and a son, Nelson, who assumed direction of all his publishing connections.
She was a United States scientific historian and nature writer who published several books on wildflowers and birds under the pen name Neltje Blanchan.
He was an American book publisher and president of Doubleday Company from 1922-1946.
