Smith, George

Smith, George

(born March 19, 1824, London, Eng.—died April 6, 1901, Byfleet, near Weybridge, Surrey) British publisher. He took over his father's bookselling and publishing business in 1846. Under his leadership the firm issued works by such noted Victorian writers as John Ruskin, the Brontë sisters, Charles Darwin, William Thackeray, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wilkie Collins, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Martineau, and Anthony Trollope. His most important publication was the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, 66 vol. (1885–1901), later continued by Oxford University Press. He also began the illustrated literary journal Cornhill Magazine (1860) and the Pall Mall Gazette (1865), a literary newspaper.