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RichardBentleyPrinter

Richard Bentley (1794-1871). Lithograph by Charles Baugniet (1814-1886), 1844. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Richard Bentley (24 October 1794 - 10 September 1871) was a 19th-century English publisher.

Life[]

Overview[]

Bentley was born in London in 1794. His father owned the General Evening Post in conjunction with John Nichols; Richard Bentley, on leaving St Paul's school, was apprenticed to Nichols to learn the printing trade. With his brother Samuel (1785-1868), an antiquarian of some repute, he set up a printing establishment, but in 1829 he began business as a publisher in partnership with Henry Colburn in New Burlington Street. Colburn retired in 1832 and Bentley continued business on his own account. In 1837 he began Bentley's Miscellany, edited for the first 3 years of its existence by Charles Dickens, whose Oliver Twist (with Cruikshank's illustrations) appeared in its pages. Bentley and his son George (1828-1895), as Richard Bentley & Son, published works by R.H. Barham, Theodore Hook, Isaac D'Israeli, Judge Haliburton and others; also the Library of Standard Novels and the Favourite Novel Library. In the latter series Mrs Henry Wood's East Lynne appeared. In 1866 the firm took over the publication of Temple Bar, with which Bentley's Miscellany was afterwards incorporated. Richard Bentley died on 10 September 1871. His son, George Bentley, and his grandson, Richard Bentley, junior, continued the business until it was absorbed (1898) by Macmillan & Co.[1]

Youth[]

Bentley was descended from an old Shropshire family. He was born in London, probably in Paternoster Row, where his father, Edward Bentley, and his uncle, John Nichols, were proprietors and publishers of the General Evening Post.[2]

Richard was sent to St. Paul's School, where he had for school-fellows John Pollock, R.H. Barham (Ingoldsby), and Medhurst, the China missionary, among others. Some amusing letters addressed in after years to Bentley may be found in Barham's Life and Letters, 2 vols. 1870. After leaving school Bentley learned the art and business of printing in the office of his uncle, John Nichols.[2]

Early career[]

In 1819 Bentley joined his brother Samuel, who had established a printing-office in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, and afterwards in Shoe Lane. The Bentleys took high rank among printers, and were noted especially for the care with which they printed woodcuts, such as those which illustrate Yarrell's works on natural history.[2]

In 1829 Richard Bentley joined in partnership with Henry Colburn, the publisher of fashionable novels, who had then recently published with great success Evelyn's and Pepys's Diaries.[2]

In 1832 Colburn retired from the business on terms which were afterwards cancelled by an agreement which gave him liberty to set up another business in Great Marlborough Street, London. Bentley continued in New Burlington Street, where in process of time he gathered round him many men of letters. Luttrell, Moore, Isaac Disraeli and his greater son Benjamin, Theodore Hook, Barham, Haliburton (Sam Slick), Charles Dickens, Mrs. Norton, George Cruikshank, and John Leech were of those whose works, in part or wholly, he brought before the world.[2]

Bentley's Miscellany[]

Main article: Bentley's Miscellany

Bentley's Miscellany was started in 1837, when Barham uttered his well-known joke as to the title best suited for the new magazine:[2] "The magazine was originally intended to have been called The Wits' Miscellany. 'Why,' urged Barham, when the change of title was suggested to him, 'why go to the other extreme?' This excellent mot has been erroneously attributed to Jerrold."[3]

In the previous year Bentley had made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, at the time a reporter for the Morning Chronicle, and had come to an agreement with him (signed 22 August 1836) for 2 novels for the sum of £1,000. In October 1836 Dickens was offered and accepted the stipend of £20 a month as editor of the Miscellany,’ increased in the following March to £30 a month. The success of the Miscellany, in which Oliver Twist appeared with Cruikshank's illustrative plates, was so great that Bentley raised his terms considerably, paying £750 for Oliver Twist,’ and offering £4,000 for the 2nd novel, Barnaby Rudge. The popularity of Dickens, however, had risen so rapidly that he felt dissatisfied with the arrangements made with his publisher. In January 1839 he withdrew from the editorship of the Miscellany, was freed from the engagement to contribute Barnaby Rudge to that magazine, and bought from Bentley the copyright and remaining stock of Oliver Twist for £2,250.[2]

W.H. Ainsworth became editor of the Miscellany, which continued to flourish till 1868, when it ceased to appear, after a successful run of 31 years. For some years (1837 to 1843) contributors to the magazine met at the Miscellany dinners in the Red Room in Burlington Street. Moore gives an account of one of these festive gatherings in his Diary (vii. 244).[2]

Later career[]

The issue of 127 volumes of Standard Novels was another remarkable venture of Bentley's which met with great success. He was enterprising enough even to publish, in January 1845, a newspaper entitled Young England, which set forth the views of the small party known under that name. Despite the labors of Hon. George Smythe and his friends, this journal came to an end, after a short existence of 3 months. In like manner Bentley's Quarterly Review (1859), though conducted by Douglas Cook, with the assistance of Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Marquis of Salisbury, only reached a 4th number.[2]

Bentley held what was thought to be the copyright of many works written by American authors. By a decision of the House of Lords in 1859 the claim to such right was annulled, with a loss to Bentley equivalent to £16,000.[2]

In 1867 Bentley had the misfortune to meet with a severe accident at the Chepstow railway station, in consequence of which he relinquished the management of his business to his son, Mr. George Bentley. He lived 4 years longer, dying at Ramsgate, 10 September 1871, at the age of 77.[2]

See also[]

References[]

  • Wallins, Roger P.. "Richard Bentley, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, Henry Colburn, Henry Colburn and Company, Richard Bentley and Son," British Literary Publishing Houses, 1820-1880 (edited by Patricia Anderson & Jonathan Rose. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 106. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991, 39-52.
  • PD-icon Harrison, Robert (1885) "Bentley, Richard (1794-1871)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 2 London: Smith, Elder, p. 317 . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 25, 2002.
  • Bentley, Richard. "Some Leaves From The Past" Privately Published 1896.

Notes[]

  1. PD-icon Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Bentley, Richard". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 752-753. . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 25, 2020.
  2. 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Harrison, 316.
  3. Richard Garnett, "Barham, Richard Harris," Dictionary of National Biography (1885) 3, 188. Wiksource, Web, Mar. 25, 2020.

External links[]

PD-icon This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Bentley, Richard (1794-1871)
PD-icon This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Richard Bentley (publisher)

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