Early Life and Education
Nelson Doubleday was born in Brooklyn, New York to Frank Nelson Doubleday (of French Huguenot descent, from a DuBaldy family) and Neltje Blanchan. His older brother Felix Doty was adopted, and he had a younger sister Dorothy. In the city, the children attended a private Friends School run by Quakers. The family moved out to a large estate in Locust Valley on Long Island, called "Effendi" after their father's nickname given to him by his friend, the British author Rudyard Kipling. The author wrote his Just So Stories after the boy Nelson asked him to publish a book of animal stories.
Nelson grew up in the world of book publishing, as his father had founded the Doubleday company. His mother wrote several books about gardening and birds, which were considered notable for their combination of scientific content and lyrical expression.
Nelson later studied at a private school in Ossining, New York. He attended two years of New York University before joining his father in business, which he found more interesting. Even as a youth, he had creative solutions to business issues, for instance, suggesting selling dated magazines at a discount and thereby gaining some revenue from them.
Read more about this topic: Nelson Doubleday
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“What is there in life except one’s ideas,
Good air, good friend, what is there in life?”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)