KNIGHT, CHARLES, an eminent English publisher and author, was b. in 1791 at Windsor, where his father carried on the business of a bookseller. Knight was brought up to the same profession, but early turned his attention to publishing. Among his first attempts in this department was The Etonian, a periodical supported by the Eton boys, and which, in spite of its juvenility, obtained a considerable reputation. He next started (1823) Knight's Quarterly Magazine, and continued it for some time in London, to which he removed in the following year. The whole of his honorable career was devoted to popular literature, of which he was one of the earliest and most accomplished advocates. He died Mar. 9, 1873. Among the works which Knight published or edited are the Penny Magazine (1832-45), which was started only a month or two after Cham bers's Edinburgh Journal, and at one time enjoyed a circulation of nearly 200,000 copies weekly; the British Almanac, and Companion to the Almanac ; Penny Cyclopedia (30 vols. 1833-56); Library of Entertaining Knowledge—the volume on the elephant (1831) being Written by himself; Pictorial History of England; Pictorial Bible (1838), now the property of Messrs. Chambers; Pictorial Book ef Common Prayer (1838); London, Pic torially illustrated (6 vols. 1841-44); Old England, a Pictorial Museum of National
Antiquities (2 vols. 1845); half-hours with the Best Authors (4 vols. 1847-48); The Land We Lire In (4 vols. 1848); qclopadia of the Industry of all _Nations (1851); and The Eng lish (Wopadia (22 vols. 1854-61), which is based on the Penny Cyclopadta, but is a great advance even on that admirable work, and, in fact, forms one of the most complete and accurate cyclopindias in the world. Knight in addition won a highly respectable position as an author by his Pictorial Shakespeare, which is accompanied by a "biography" and a "history of opinion, with doubtful plays," etc. (8 vols. 1839-41); library edition (12 vols. 1842 44);. national edition. with "biography" and "studies" (8 vols. 1851-53); Life of Caxton (1844); Plays amid Poems, with Glossarial Notes (7111 ed. 1857); Knowledge is Power (1855); and above all, by his Popular History of England, an Illustrated History of Society and Government from the Earliest Period to our own Times (1856-62). This work is probably the very best history of England that we possess—" the history," according to the Times, English youth."