Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/275

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Heinemann
D.N.B. 1912–1921

was himself president from 1909 to 1911. He was also president of the National Booksellers' Provident Association from 1913 until his death, and was very active on its council.

Heinemann numbered amongst his friends many brilliant men of his day, not only in England, but on the Continent. He spoke and read fluently French, German, Italian, and had a working knowledge of Spanish; and it is largely owing to him that the masterpieces of foreign literature are now available in sound English translations. His firm produced, under (Sir) Edmund Gosse's editorship, the International Library of translations from leading works of European fiction; and Heinemann commissioned Mrs. Constance Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Tolstoy, and launched in England the works of Ibsen—translated by William Archer—of Björnson, and of Romain Rolland. His place amongst the publishers of Europe was unique: he was the junction where all the lines met. He was persona grata with his confrères of other lands and, at the same time, he was a spectacular figure in the English publishing world. His meeting with Dr. James Loeb, a graduate of Harvard University and formerly a partner in the New York banking firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was responsible for his most impressive literary enterprise. Dr. Loeb, imbued with a great love for the classics, combined with Heinemann to produce the unique Loeb classical library of translations from well-known and little-known classical authors. When completed the library will contain all that is most valuable in classical antiquity. It already includes many authors hitherto but little studied.

Undoubtedly Heinemann's most notable quality as a publisher was his extraordinary power of recognizing not only what was good but also what the world would consider good a few years after the date of publication. As a man his chief gift was for friendship. He gathered round himself a brilliant circle. Whatever party he gave he was the centre of it, and he brought out all that was best and most interesting in his guests. His great weakness was a certain intellectual arrogance: he had a larger ‘blind spot’ in his mental outlook than most men of his attainments, because he was human enough to be violently prejudiced by his own personal likes and dislikes. But it may be said of Heinemann, as his best epitaph, that the ideal was always more to him than the bank balance: he was a man to whom the dream was more than the business.

Heinemann married in 1899 (but divorced in 1904) Donna Magda Stuart Sindici, a talented young Italian authoress, whose first novel, Via Lucis, he had published. He died suddenly in London 5 October 1920.

[Private information.]

F. T. J.


HENDERSON, Sir DAVID (1862–1921), lieutenant-general, the youngest son of David Henderson, shipbuilder, of Glasgow, by his wife, Jane Pitcairn, was born at Glasgow 11 August 1862. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and passed into the army by way of Sandhurst in 1883. He served with his regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, in South Africa, Ceylon, and China, returning to Edinburgh in 1892. High-minded and single of purpose, he applied himself to the study of his profession. He served in 1898 in the Sudan campaign and was promoted brevet major, and in 1899–1902 in South Africa. He was wounded at Ladysmith, promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel in November 1900, and spent two valuable years (October 1900–September 1902) as director of military intelligence under Lord Kitchener. A short period with the civil government of the Transvaal followed. When Henderson returned to England he set down the lessons which he had learned in Africa, and these were published as an official text-book, Field Intelligence: its Principles and Practice (1904). At home he filled various staff appointments, always with distinction, but found time to write The Art of Reconnaissance (1907) which went into many editions.

When the American inventor, Wilbur Wright, startled Europe with his flights in France (1908) Henderson turned his mind to the air as a new element in warfare; but it was only in 1911, at the age of forty-nine, that he learned to fly at Brooklands. The committee of imperial defence was at this time deeply concerned with the question of a national air service. Henderson served on a sub-committee appointed to consider the problem, and its report bears the mark of his wide and practical experience. It recommended the formation of a flying corps, which came into being as the Royal Flying Corps in May 1912.

In July 1912 Henderson went to the War Office as director of military training, an appointment which he held for fourteen months. During that time the expan--

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