J. M. Dent

Joseph Malaby Dent (30 August 1849 – 9 May 1926) was a British book publisher who produced the Everyman's Library series. He founded the firm J.M. Dent and Company in 1888. After a short and unsuccessful stint as an apprentice printer, he took up bookbinding. At the age of fifteen, he gave a talk on James Boswell's Life of Johnson, which would be the first book printed in the Everyman's Library. J.M. Dent and Company, later J.M. Dent & Sons

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In 1888, Dent founded the firm of J.M. Dent and Company (the name was changed to J.M. Dent & Sons in 1909) and began publishing at 69 Great Eastern Street, London. Dent's first production, Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia, was edited by Augustine Birrell and illustrated by Herbert Railton, followed in 1889 by Goldsmith's Poems and Play s. Works by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Geoffrey Chaucer, Daniel Defoe, Maria Edgeworth, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Lord Tennyson, and W. B. Yeats followed between 1889 and 1894. These early editions were produced in limited quantities on handmade paper and enjoyed some commercial success. followed in 1906 by Everyman's Library, a series of 1000 volumes. Although not a new idea, what set Everyman's apart from earlier series was its scope. He was able to build a new factory and offices in Covent Garden with the profits.

Among the impressive volumes that came from Dent was The Pilgrim's Regress, the spiritual autobiography of C. S. Lewis, published in 1933.

Eventually, Dent's publishing activities expanded to include textbooks, children's books, educational books, self-help books, and travel guides. Dent remained in the forefront of the publishing field by expanding sales to foreign markets, including Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.

J. M. Dent's second son, Hugh R. Dent, served as director of J.M. Dent & Sons between 1926 and 1938, taking his elder brother George's place when George left for New Zealand due to haemorrhage of the lungs and served there as vicar in the Anglican church.

W. G. Taylor, brother of Frederick Lewis Taylor, abbot of Ramsgate, served as director of J.M. Dent & Sons between 1938 and 1963. Taylor's editorial and personal correspondence with best-selling authors is kept in the Dent & Sons' archive in the University of North Carolina's Rare Book Collection, and contains correspondence with authors Robert Gibbings and Ronald A. Knox, politician Walter Nash, the Vatican, and several publishing companies, among other papers. Four St. Ives residents portrayed in it (none of them artists, although they included the poet and writer Arthur Caddick) began actions for libel.

Although Berlin created new names for all the characters, it was fairly obvious at the time who was who. Finally, an open court statement was held on 18 June 1963. The author owed Dent & Sons (who were well-insured) damages owing to lost profits after the book was withdrawn from circulation.

Despite having an impressive range of literature, Dent prevented classics of dubious morals, such as Moll Flanders, from being printed. The First World War slowed the production of books and Dent did not live to see the one thousand-volume mark reached in 1956. J. M. Dent died in 1926,

In 1986, Dent & Sons was sold to Weidenfeld & Nicolson. and Malaby Martin Ltd, a niche development company. A new sister company Malaby Biogas Ltd was created in 2009 as a pioneering renewable energy and sustainable development business.