William Ralston Balch (pseudonym C. C. C.; December 9, 1852 – March 7, 1923) was an American journalist and author who wrote "The Complete Compendium of Universal Knowledge", among other reference works. A supplemented edition of James Sanks Brisbin's biography of James A. Garfield, published in 1881, was credited wholly to him.
Biography.
Born on December 9, 1852 in Leetown, Virginia, he began his newspaper work in the composing room of the "Concord Monitor" as a boy in 1871. He was connected with the London Bureau of the Associated Press for several years. Balch was responsible for the raising of the $500,000 fund of the "London Daily Mail" during the Boer War. In this work he secured the co-operation of Rudyard Kipling, whose poem, "The Absent-minded Beggar," which he wrote especially for this cause, brought so much money into the office of the "Mail" that it was decided to found a veterans' hospital at Portsmouth, England. 
Balch contributed to the "London Daily Mail" an exclusive account of the impending death of Queen Victoria, developed out of a noblewoman's remark to her dressmaker that black would be the fashion that winter. In Boston he tracked down the suspected murderer Chastine Cox, who had long baffled the New York police. In 1879, he was managing editor of "The Philadelphia Press", and later was connected with the "Boston Daily Advertiser" and "Boston Herald". When he served as a founding editor of "The American" in 1880, the magazine featured notable contributors like Henry Cuyler Bunner, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and Walt Whitman. Balch was the author of the War Chronicle in the columns of the "Boston Evening Transcript" during World War I. He had also been on the staffs of the "Boston Herald" and "Advertiser". Balch died on March 7, 1923 in Somerville Massachusetts.
Bibliography.
Balch's encyclopedia titled "The Complete Compendium of Universal Knowledge" was published in 1891. His biography of American president James A. Garfield was published in 1881, although it was only a republished edition of James Sanks Brisbin's biography of Garfield, to which Balch had presumably added chapters. Balch wrote other encyclopedias around the same time, including "The People's Dictionary and Every-day Encyclopedia" in 1883 and "Ready Reference: The Universal Cyclopaedia Containing Everything that Everybody Wants to Know" in 1901.