RICHARD

See also:

• BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742)
• RICHARD BENTLEY (1794-1871)

BENTLEY (1794-1871)  , British publisher, was born in London in 1794 . His father owned the General Evening Post in conjunction with John Nichols, to whom Richard Bentley, on leaving St Paul's school, was apprenticed 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 three 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; Ilso 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 the loth of September 1871 . His son, George Bentley, and his grandson, Richard Bentley, junior, continued the business until it was absorbed (1898) by Macmillan & Co . See also R .

Bentley &' Son (

Edinburgh, 1886), a history of the firm reprinted from Le Livre (October, 1885) .