AN ARMCHAIR ESSAY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 116, 9 February 1929, Page 24

AN ARMCHAIR ESSAY

A BOOKLOVER’S FRIEND—THE FOUNDER OF “EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY.”

(Written for “The Dominion” by Charles Wilson).

Every bookman must know, and ought to cherish in most grateful memory, the name of Joseph Mallaby Dent, during the last quarter of a century famous as one of the most enterprising of London publishers, and especially notable in the world of books ns the founder of thaj greatest of boons to all book buyers of modestly garnished purse—“Everyman’s Library.” Just recently have been pub lished “The Memoirs of J. M. Dent. 1849-1926” (J. M. Dent and Sons) Originally written “some years ago without any idea of publication.' meant to be treated as an intimate record of life for the benefit of a family and personal circle, they are now issued to a wider public, with some additions by the author’s son, Mr. Hugh M. Dent, with whom the present writer was a fellow-passenger from Canada on the Niagara to New Zealand In November. 1926.

Mr. J. M. Dent had a very remarkable career. Coming of a farming family, young Dent’s father settled in Darlington, ' Yorkshire. where the future publisher was born in 1849. It was and is a great Quaker town, which gave to ,the world in its time a more or less famous politician and philanthropist, Edward. Pease. and a notable journalist, Mr. W. L. Stead, editor of the “Northern Echo,” and later of the.“ Pall Mall Gazette”: and has produced not a few hard-headed North Countrymen who have made their mark in the world. Dent’s father, a painter and decorator by trade, was in. a small way of business, and the lad was apprenticed to a local printer who was also a bookbinder.

Young Dent’s personal tastes favourr ed the binding branch; and to this his activities were mainly confined. A member of a Mutual Improvement Society, the lad was gradually led on to read something better than "penny awfuls,” in which. I am afraid, prints ers’ boys were apt to flud recreation. He got to know Boswell—reading Macaulay’s Essay first, and when, his employer failing, fie got a billet in London, he increased his acquaintance with the best in English literature. It was doubtless otfing to the difficulty in those early days of hard work and poverty, of finding books ‘at a price he could afford, which so encouraged and stimulated his ambition, when once a publisher, to give readers of moderate income the masterpieces of literature at a price they could afford. Very soon he set up ip business as a bookbinder for himself, fortunately finding a friend who believed in him and lent him the money necessary for buying plant.' He bound books for the Civil Service stores and did a few orders from publishers who wanted books bound in fancy leather. But lie had bad luck and was burnt out. Fortunately his backer believed in film, and he made a fresh start. In 1888 he moved into new premises, and soon produced the first two volumes of the Temple Library—“ Lamb’s Essays of Elia” and “The Last Essays of Elia,” the tasteful format of which at once secured their popularity with lovers of tastefully produced volumes.; Once I possessed those two volues, their size was that technically called pott octavo, but, owing to a mistake, some years ago. I included them among a number of books I was clearing out. Two volumes of the Temple Library, “Johnson’s Essays” with notes by Birkbeck Hill, I still possess. I believe the series is long out of print. ;

As years went on, Mr. Dent and his wife went to-Italy With the Toynbee Travellers’ Club, the result of a visit to Siena and Florence being the Mediaeval Town series, which grew to great proportions. All this time he was an active member of the Toynbee Shakespeare Society, and, as secretary of the Institution, saw the necessity of a welledited, handy-sized and reasonablypriced Shakespeare? So the Dent Shakespeare was planned. Israel Gollanez. a member of a clever family, one member of which is Victor Gollanez. now a rising publisher, edited the series. Special Dutch paper was imported, the rubric of .the act and scene, printed nt the head of each page, was in red. the lines numbered, so as to ensure ready referenC-e by the student reading the play, the size bandy so that a volume could be conveniently carried—and all for a shilling a volume —what a boon this was to the Shakespearean student of the nineties! ft was a great score for Mr. Dent to secure the use of the Cambridge text (edited by Professor Aldis Wright, the friend of Edward Fitzgerald of Omar Khayyam fame), and there was a nice

frontispiece portrait or scene from Shakespeare to set the edition off. I can well remember tlie first volume of the Temple Shakespeare being shown me by the late Mr. John Baillie, of Herbert Baillie's. CubiTStreet. The forty volumes begun to be issued in 1894. the whole series being completed by 1896. The series was an immense success, nt one time the sales reaching a quarter of a million a year. Even now there is no better "one play one volume” Shakespeare than the Temple edition

The Temple Classics were another delightful series, of nicely sized volumes. beautifully printed on thin, opaque paper, with but one fault, to my mind, the rather "finnicky” titles, which made them rather difficult to distinguish on the bookshelf. Quite a number of these books are on my own' bookshelves, much-valued possessions, many of them editions not hitherto procurable at a low price. I notice Mr. Ellis edited Caxton’s translation of the "Golden Legend,” Ben Jonson’s “Timber,” Milton’s' “Shorter Poems,” and a complete Dante, with the Italian text on one side and the English version on the other—still the only complete Dante In English! A special treasure is Thomas North’s “Plutarch” in ten volumes. This was the source of some of Shakespeare’s plays. The price of the original edition of the Temple Classics was Is. 6d. cloth and 2s. Gd. full limp leather. Mr. Dent and his wife had a special weakness for visiting Italy at this time. One of their friends was Professor Villar!, of the biographer of Machiavelli and Savanarola. One story of Villari, who had an English wife, , is told by the publisher’s autobiographer :— I Madame Villari was well known as - an English woman of sturdy build i and stentorian voice, and for some- j what too vigorously declaiming her i nationality in a rather John Bullish I style. It was at the time of the ' Boer War, and during tea she had ; been defending the British Government and the war, of which the professor strongly disapproved. During a pause in Madame Villari’s declamations, he turned his refined • face and said with a charming ' smile, “Ah, Lina, I must tell you I of a vision I have had, a great vision.” We were, of course, all on tiptoe with excitement to hear. He said: “I did dream that I was on the Mount of Purgatorio climbing upwards with great pain and labour, when I met ’a man coming down in great distress, groaning and moaning with pain, and I said: ‘Oh. what is the matter? Who are you? Pray tell me all about it.’ And he said: ‘Oh, I am Job, and I am full of trouble, full of trouble.’ ‘Ah, what {is it? Surely it must be terrible.’ ‘Yes.’ he said, ‘it is too terrible to tell.’ ‘Oh. do tell me—have you got an English wife?’ ‘Oh. no,’ he said. ‘Ab,’ saifl I, ‘then yon know nothing about trouble, I assure yon.’ ” Sladqme Villari enjoyed the story, and laughed louder than any of us. Amongst other literary celebrities Mr. Dent )<new were Augustine Birrell: Stopford Brooke, who edited Coleridge for him—"No one voiud but love Brooke after hearing his glorious pane- | gyrics: what a head he had, the handsomest man I ever knew, with a face you could never forget"; Andrew Lang, who edited a Dent edition of Walton’s “Compleat Angler”; and Sir

Edward, now Lord. Grey. Joe Pennell and Herbert Railton and the Brocks were among his illustrators. In connection with his many line editions, however, he fell into one trouble, a lawsuit over Lamb’s letters, edited, this edition, by the late Rev. F.. W. Macdonald, an uncle of Rudyard Kip ling. Dent bought a collection of Lamb’s letters, and. unaware that Macmillan had included them in Canon Ainger’s edition of Lamb, used them again in Macdonald’s edition, overlooking the fact that Macmillans owned the copyright. There was a legal action. and Mr. Dent’s counsel. Mr. Danckwerts. K.C.. much annoyed at the Judge’s frequent interruptions of his address to the Court, remarked in an undeTtone: "The d d old fool; he is evidently against us.” Unfortunately the Judge was quick-eared, and was not thereby more amiably disposed towards Dent’s ease, which was that he had a right to publish letters which were his own property,

Many other editions which Dents published were Fielding and Sterne, Goldsmith, with notes by George Saintsbury, and Austin Dobson: Malory's "Morte d’Arthur.” iu which he was the first publisher to use drawings by the 111-fated Aubrey Beardsley, and of which an edition in one fine volume was issued by the firm last year: and a complete Balzac in English, with introductions —the best in any language—by Professor George Saintsbury. But the chef d’oeuvre for which Dent whs—the firm is still—responsible, is “Everyman’s Library,” now running into over 800 volumes. For this great series alone the name of Dent will be for ever celebrated.

The story of “Everyman’s Library” is in itself a romance of British publishing. It was in 1904 and 1905 that Mr. Dent was at last able to set about developing the idea in earnest. There were several predecessors in popular reprints, the Chandos Classics, Macmillan’s Globe series, Morley’s Library, etc., but none covered the great field of English literature, let alone that of the world. The publisher found himself with a free sum of £lO.OOO, part of which was his working capital, but eventually made arrangements with paper merchants, etc., to start the enterprise, although, for a time, removing to fine new premises in Bedford Street and starting a big new printing factory at Letchworth Garden Ctiy, trenched awkwardly upon bis avail;, able funds.

But everybody was -helpful. Not only were scholarly introductions written by men like Lord Bryce, Dr. Lindsay. Hilaire Belloc. Chesterton i who edited the "Everyman’s Dickens”), Stopford Brooke, and President Eliot, of Harvard, but Dents showed that they did not intend to shirk big tilings, by issuing Grote's “Greece.” in twelve volumes, and Hakluyt’s "Voyages.” in eight volumes. Huxley, Tyndall. Macaulay’s "History”—7so pages to a volume—and hosts upon hosts of other classics, as well as editions of many foreign classics, in. ably edited translations—and all, if you please, iu wellprinted volumes at one shilling each. And that the enterprise is still going on. though, since the war. the cost if production has so greatly increased that the price has had to go up. all New Zealand booklovers know full well. One thousand volumes, the goal aimed at by Mr. Dent when the series was first announced, is in a fair w.iy to being achieved. Mr. Ernest Rhys it was who first suggested the title long a source of anxiety- quoting 'he old lines from the play: ■•Everyman. I will go with thee and be thy guide." Mr. Rhys is still the general editor. It is safe to say that no such enterprise has been floated by a firm of English publishers. ■ May it be successfully continued until the aim .s ; achieved, and on the part of many who hail it as one of the greatest boons that bookmen have been offered. I !' trust that it may include the late Mr. Dent’s Memoirs. -