George M. Smith Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

GEORGE SMITH (1824-1901), born in London, England) was a book publisher who published works from many of the most important British authors of the 19th Century, including Charles Darwin, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilkie Collins, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Martineau, James Payn, Anthony Trollope, and Mary Augusta Arnold aka Mrs. Humphry Ward. Smith was reportedly born over his father's bookshop of Smith, Elder & Co. and, in 1846, took over complete control of the company. A friend and publisher of both William Makepeace Thackeray and John Ruskin, Smith also helped Charlotte Brontë find a publisher for Jane Eyre. He also helped to found the literary journal Cornhill Magazine in 1860 and Pall Mall magazine in 1865, and his company published the Dictionary of National Biography from 1885 to 1917, when it was taken over by Oxford University Press.