John Bell (publisher)

John Bell (1745-1831) was an English publisher. The "Dictionary of National Biography" has Charles Knight calling Bell a "mischievous spirit, the very Puck of booksellers." His 109-volume, literature-for-the-masses "Poets of Great Britain Complete from Chaucer to Churchill", which rivaled Samuel Johnson's "Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets" (1781), was published from 1777 to 1783. Each volume cost just six shillings, at a time when similar volumes usually cost multiple times that. The drawings and illustrations with which Bell adorned his publications influenced later publishers, as did his abandonment of the long s. Most notable, perhaps, was Bell's joint-stock organization of his publishing company, which defied "the trade" – forty dominant publishing companies – in order to establish a monopoly on the best publications. In addition to the immense "Poets of Great Britain", Bell also published similar volumes on "Shakespeare" and "The British Theatre", as well as the Sunday newspaper "Bell's Weekly Messenger" and other periodicals. He died in Fulham in 1831.

References

*Encyclopedia Britannica Online, "John Bell" and "History of publishing." Accessed January 28, 2007.
*"Dictionary of National Biography." 1885. "John Bell." Vol. IV. Page 168. Via Google Books. January 28, 2007.