Charles Elkin Mathews was born in Gravesend in 1851. As a young man, he served his apprenticeship in the book trade working for Charles John Stewart in London, managing Peach's library in Bath, and then returning to London to work for the firm of Messrs Sotheran in Piccadilly. In 1884 he opened an antiquarian and general bookshop at 16 Cathedral Close, Exeter, where he also began his publishing career, joining with other local booksellers in his first venture. In 1887 he arranged with John Lane to move to premises in Vigo Street, Piccadilly, and the firm began business in October of that year. From 1892 to 1894 he was in partnership with Lane both for selling and publishing books, particularly belles lettres, and their reputation reached its height with the publication of The Yellow Book in 1894. Shortly afterwards the partnership was dissolved. Lane began an independent publishing venture under the name of The Bodley Head, which had been the name of the Vigo Street shop. Mathews continued to sell and publish books, being the first publisher of such authors as W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Robert Bridges. In 1912 he moved from Vigo Street to Cork Street.
After moving to London in 1887 Mathews lived next door to Yeats in Bedford Park, Chiswick, and subsequently in Chorley Wood, Hertfordshire, where he died on 10 November 1921. He left a widow, Edith Elkin Mathews (ne Calvert), whom he married in 1896, and a daughter.
From the guide to the Papers of Charles Elkin Mathews, 1811-1938, (Reading University: Special Collections Services)
