UNFORGETTABLE DeWitt Wallace

As we continue to celebrate 100 years since Reader's Digest got its humble start, here's part two of the remarkable story of the man who, with his wife, Lila, built it into a global success

- Charles Ferguson

THERE WERE NO CANCELLATIONS AFTER THE FIRST ISSUE. SO THE EDITORS GOT BUSY ON A SECOND. LILA KEPT HER SOCIAL-WORK JOB TO PAY THE RENT. WALLY WENT UPTOWN EACH DAY TO FORAGE THROUGH MAGAZINES IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THUS AVOIDED HAVING TO BUY THEM. HE CONDENSED ARTICLES THAT ENGAGED HIS MIND.

HE WROTE THEM in longhand on yellow sheets of paper, eliminating asides, pruning wordy prose, getting straight to the point.

In September 1922, the Wallaces rented a garage apartment for $25 a month in Pleasantville, New York, the town where they'd been married. Orders kept coming in as Wally kept mailing out promotions. By the end of the magazine's first year, circulation had increased to 7,000. More working space was needed, so for $10 extra per month the Wallaces rented a pony shed beside the garage. They brought in typewriters and stencil cutting machines, and hired some neighbourhood help.

Wally still wrote his own promotion circulars and letters that were personal in tone. Some envelopes were handwritten. His direct-mail approach established a personal connection, a kind of companionship between editor and reader. The promotion letter you got was from the man who originated and produced the magazine, asking you to subscribe for your own good. Other magazines launching at about the same time aimed at millions of readers. The upstart Reader's Digest aimed at the individual—and out succeeded the whole pack.

When they began to feel prosperous enough, co-editors DeWitt and Lila would go somewhere to escape interruption and, in a seven-to-ten-day work binge, put together the next issue. They'd take adjoining hotel rooms, he working in one and giving her a batch of publications to read in the other. To rule out distractions they communicated by notes slipped under the door. He kept all her notes. This one was scribbled on a pad of the St Regis Hotel in New York: