Biography
The Bentley family was a prominent nineteenth-century British publishing family. Richard Bentley (1794-1871) joined his brother Samuel Bentley in a successful printing business in 1819. From 1829 to 1832, Richard partnered with publisher Henry Colburn to form Colburn & Bentley. The pair began the series Standard Novels, the successful monthly reprints that ended in 1854 with 126 volumes (and included authors such as William Godwin, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, Washington Irving, Leigh Hunt, Letitia Landon, and Harriet Beecher Stowe). After the split with Colburn, Richard continued to publish, and in 1837 he created the successful Bentley's Miscellany . Both Charles Dickens and W.H. Ainsworth edited the periodical at various points (with Dickens's Oliver Twist first appearing in its pages), and George Cruikshank contributed illustrations. In 1866, Richard merged Bentley's Miscellany with Temple Bar, and his son George Bentley (1828-1895) became editor the following year, also taking on the leadership of Richard Bentley & Son. George's son, Richard Bentley (1854-1936) then ran the business from the mid-1880s until selling it to Macmillans in 1898.
From the guide to the Bentley Family papers, 1849-1970, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)
