BENTLEY, RICHARD British publisher, was born in London. His father owned the General Evening Post in conjunction with John Nichols. With his brother Samuel 0785-1868), an antiquarian of some repute, he set up a printing establishment, but in 1829 he began business as a publisher in partnership with Henry Colburn in New Burlington street. Col burn retired in 1832 and Bentley continued business on his own account. In 1837 he began Bentley's Miscellany, edited for the first three years of its existence by Charles Dickens, whose Oliver Twist, with Cruikshank's illustrations, appeared in its pages. Bentley and his son George (1828-95), as Richard Bentley & Son, published works by R. H. Barham, Theodore Hook, Isaac D'Israeli, Judge Haliburton, and others; also the "Library of Standard Novels" and the "Favourite Novel Library." In 1866 the firm took over the publication of Temple Bar, with which Bentley's Miscellany was afterwards incorporated. After Richard Bentley's death his son, George Bentley, and his grand son, Richard Bentley, junior, continued the business until it was absorbed (1898) by Macmillan & Co.
See R. Bentley & Son (Edinburgh, 1886), a history of the firm reprinted from Le Livre (Oct. 1885) .