Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/213

 at La Belle Sauvage was "Social England," of which the first edition appeared in six volumes in 1894–7. According to Mr. J. S. Mann, who took a leading part in the shaping and execution of the scheme, the idea originated with Sir Wemyss Reid about the end of 1890, and was suggested by the success of J. R. Green's History. It was felt from the first that it could only be carried out by the co-operation of many contributors, and H. D. Traill was invited by John Williams to take the editorship. Mr. Mann had recently given up a college lectureship at Oxford and was regularly writing for the Speaker. In February, 1891, he joined Cassell's staff, and was asked to help in producing the book.

"I was sent," says Mr. Mann, "to talk over the plan, about which various eminent people had been consulted, with Mr. Traill, then and for some years afterwards editor of the Observer. As all the contributors were to be men of some eminence, it seemed advisable that they should each take a subject—politics, religion, army, navy, literature, learning, trade and industry, or social life—and write a section on it, in each chapter, which should cover a certain period. This arrangement made the sections rather short, as space was a great difficulty, but it greatly increased the authority and value of the work. But other difficulties soon cropped up. The contributors took divergent views, and we had, with their leave, to tone down the differences; and some of them, being very busy, were perforce unpunctual. Then, their contributions sometimes overlapped each other, and with their permission we had to adjust matters. Later we avoided this overlapping by printing a preliminary sketch of each volume and sending it out to intending contributors with the request to suggest improvements and to arrange the limits of their contributions. This proved satisfactory, and there was very little revision or reduction needed in the sketches.

"With the rarest exceptions, the contributors took the utmost trouble to meet our views, and I cannot be too grateful to them for their cordial and helpful co-operation. Many of them helped us in other ways, by suggesting subjects and writers on them, and other historical scholars, who did not themselves contribute, gave most valuable aid and advice. Still, we had