Bertram Dobell
English bookseller and literary scholar (1842–1914)
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Bertram Dobell (9 January 1842 – 14 December 1914) was an English bookseller and literary scholar. Largely self-educated, he became a London bookseller and published or reissued works by writers including James Thomson and Thomas Traherne. Dobell also wrote poetry, literary criticism, and biographical works.
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- Bookseller
- literary scholar
Bertram Dobell | |
|---|---|
Portrait from In Memoriam. Bertram Dobell. 1842-1914 (1915) | |
| Born | 9 January 1842 Battle, East Sussex, England |
| Died | 14 December 1914 (aged 72) Haverstock Hill, London, England |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse |
Eleanor Wymer
(m. 1869; died 1910) |
| Children | 5 |
| Relatives | Doug Dobell (grandson) |
| Signature | |
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Biography
Early life and family
Bertram Dobell was born on 9 January 1842 in Battle, East Sussex, the son of Edward Dobell, a tailor of Huguenot descent, and Elizabeth Dobell (née Eldridge).[1][2][3] His father was disabled by paralysis at an early age, and the family lived in difficult circumstances.[4]
Dobell received little formal education and entered the workforce at an early age.[5] In London, he first worked as a grocer's errand boy and later became an assistant in the shop. As a child, he used his spare pennies to buy second-hand books and pamphlets.[3]
On 24 July 1869, he married Eleanor Wymer (1847–1910). The couple had five children.[2]
Career in bookselling
In 1872, Dobell and his wife opened a stationer and newsagent's shop in Queen's Crescent, Kentish Town.[3] He later established two second-hand bookshops on Charing Cross Road, which became known among book collectors.[2]
Dobel's booksellers' catalogues also drew literary notice. Arthur Quiller-Couch praised him for continuing "the good tradition which knits writers, printers, vendors, and purchasers of books together", and wrote that Dobell took pains to make his second-hand catalogues "better reading than half the new books printed".[6]
Literary connections
Dobell developed friendships with several contemporary writers, including the poet James Thomson. He later edited and published Thomson's poetry in book form.[2]
Dobell was a member of the interim committee of the Shelley Society.[7]
Death
Dobell died of liver cancer on 14 December 1914 at his home in Haverstock Hill, London, aged 72.[2] An obituary was published in The New York Times.[4]
Following Dobell's death, his business passed to his sons Percy and Arthur, who had both worked for him.[8]
Works
Dobell edited works by Thomas Traherne, Shelley, Oliver Goldsmith, William Strode, and James Thomson.[2] He first issued books through other publishers, but later began publishing under his own imprint. His early publications under that imprint included a "cheaper and more popular" edition of Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night in 1899.[9]
Dobell privately published a collection of his own verse, Rosemary and Pansies, in 1901, and reissued it in expanded form in 1904. The expanded edition received notice for its satires and epigrams, and contained a dozen haikai, among the early English experiments with the Japanese poetic form later known as haiku.[10][11]
Dobell's other books included A Century of Sonnets (1910), and the biographies Sidelights on Charles Lamb (1903) and The Laureate of Pessimism: A Sketch of the Life of James Thomson (1910).[2]
