Edward Mandell House (1858-1938), American diplomat, was President Wilson's most intimate counselor for several years.

Edward M. House was born on July 26, 1858, in Houston, Tex., the son of a prosperous planter and exporter. Edward was educated in England and at Cornell University. After 10 years of managing his inherited properties, he sold them and lived comfortably off the interest and other investments for the rest of his life.

Though outwardly self-effacing, House was driven to become influential. "I have been thought without ambition," he noted autobiographically. "That ... is not quite true. My ambition has been so great that it has never seemed to me worthwhile to strive to satisfy it." In truth, he did try to satisfy it by counseling men of power and by writing a political novel, Philip Dru, Administrator (1911), under a pseudonym. Philip Dru was the story of a man who became dictator of the United...