page_title: Richard Bentley (publisher)
section_title: Bentley's Miscellany
hierarchical_section_title: Richard Bentley (publisher) / "Richard Bentley" / Bentley's Miscellany
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster advertising the 'Memoirs of Grimaldi, the Clown', edited by Charles Dickens and published by Richard Bentley; with portrait of Grimaldi as a clown, head only, full face, in centre of poster. 1838 Colour lithograph, the sheet split in two horizontally down centre
context_page_description: Richard Bentley was a 19th-century English publisher born into a publishing family. He started a firm with his brother in 1819. Ten years later, he went into partnership with the publisher Henry Colburn. Although the business was often successful, publishing the famous "Standard Novels" series, they ended their partnership in acrimony three years later. Bentley continued alone profitably in the 1830s and early 1840s, establishing the well-known periodical Bentley's Miscellany. However, the periodical went into decline after its editor, Charles Dickens, left. Bentley's business started to falter after 1843 and he sold many of his copyrights. Only 15 years later did it begin to recover.
context_section_description: In October 1836, Bentley entered the periodical market. He founded Bentley's Miscellany, which first appeared in January 1837, and selected Charles Dickens, known at the time for his Pickwick Papers, as editor. Dickens also agreed to contribute a serialised novel to the periodical and to sell two novels to Bentley. The periodical was "an immediate success" – 11,000 copies were sold in 1837 – largely as a result of the serialisation of Dickens's Oliver Twist, illustrated by George Cruikshank. Dickens became increasingly frustrated at the initial terms of his contract, which he felt paid him too little. He eventually negotiated an increase to his editorial salary from £40 per month (£20 to edit and 20 guineas to write an article) to £1,000 per year, including additional payments for his novels. The two renegotiated the contract nine times. As Wallins explains, "Through nearly four years of negotiations Bentley remained calm in public; privately, he railed against Dickens's constant complaints but then backed down, delayed deadlines, and provided his author with more money as it was demanded. Bentley recognized that an unhappy author was an unproductive author." In the end, Dickens paid Bentley £2,250 to buy out the rest of his contract and to purchase the copyright to Oliver Twist.
caption: 1838 Poster advertisement for Memoirs of Grimaldi, originally by Joseph Grimaldi but heavily revised by Dickens, under his regular nom de plume, "Boz", and published by Bentley
exif: {}