A native of Ohio, Whitelaw Reid graduated from Miami University in 1856. He made a name for himself as a journalist during the Civil War, and joined the staff of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune in 1868. After Greeley’s death in 1872, he became the owner as well as editor-in-chief, and promptly invited SLC to contribute, but in 1873 he enraged SLC by refusing to have The Gilded Age reviewed by SLC’s friend Edward House. SLC struck back eight years later, having William Dean Howells review The Prince and the Pauper in the Tribune while Reid was out of the country. Late in 1881 SLC heard that Reid was slandering him in the Tribune, and collected material for a “revenge biography” of Reid for some time before realizing the rumors were groundless. Reid was President Benjamin Harrison’s ambassador to France (1889–92) and Harrison’s running-mate in his failed 1892 bid for reelection. He passed his final years as U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James (1905–12).