John Lane (publisher)
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John Lane (14 March 1854 – 2 February 1925) was a British publisher who co-founded The Bodley Head with Charles Elkin Mathews.<ref>Archives of The Bodley Head Ltd, reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 April 2020.</ref>He published the Yellow Book newspaper. He established a New York branch of his publishing business and married American author Anna Eichberg King.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Career
John Lane was born into a farming family in West Putford, Devon on 14 March 1854.<ref name=ODNB>Template:Cite ODNB</ref><ref name=Famous>Template:Cite news</ref> He moved to London in his teens. While working as a clerk at the Railway Clearing House, he acquired knowledge as an autodidact.
After entering the London book trade, in 1887 he became co-founder with Elkin Mathews of The Bodley Head which originally was a bookshop dealing in antiquarian books. In 1894, still operating under the name of The Bodley Head, they began to publish books. Mathews left shortly afterwards and began to publish on his own as Elkin Mathews Ltd. and "returned to a great concentration on bookselling".<ref>Elkin Mathews Ltd. mss., ca. 1919-1987, indiana.edu. Retrieved 10 April 2020.</ref>
Lane continued to publish as The Bodley Head and under the name John Lane. He is mainly associated with publishing controversial and audacious texts, especially for a small, sophisticated audience. Examples are the periodical The Yellow Book (1894–1897) and Lane's Keynotes Series,<ref>Keynotes (John Lane/The Bodley Head; etc.) – Book Series List, publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 22 December 2018.</ref> which included contentious material such as Grant Allen's novel The Woman Who Did (1895), Victoria Crosse's immediate reaction to it, the novel The Woman Who Didn't (1895), and H. G. Wells's novel about his affair with Amber Reeves, The New Machiavelli (1911).
Personal life
On 13 August 1898, John Lane married Annie Philippine King, the widow of Tyler Batcheller King and the daughter of Julius Eichberg.<ref name=ODNB/> Annie Lane was author of To Thee, O Country (national hymn) and of the books Brown's Retreat, Kitwyk (published by John Lane in 1903), The Champagne Standard, Talk of the Town and According to Maria.
His nephews, Allen, Richard and John Lane, founded Penguin Books.
John Lane died at his London home, 8 Lancaster Gate Terrace, Bayswater, on 2 February 1925, during a bout of influenza.<ref name=ODNB/><ref name=Famous/> He was cremated at Golders Green, and his ashes were interred at St Nectan's Church in the hamlet of Stoke, near Hartland, Devon.<ref name=ODNB/> In the St Nectan's churchyard, there is a stone seat commemorating various members of the Lane family.
Book series published by John Lane
- The Country Handbooks<ref name="wood">Publisher's advertisement in: Rosa Newmarch, Henry J. Wood, London and New York: John Lane, 1904. Retrieved 28 April 2020.</ref>
- Handbooks of Practical Gardening<ref name="wood" />
- Keynote Series
- The Library of Golden Thoughts<ref>Publisher's advertisement in: Frank Crane, Footnotes to Life, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, New York: John Lane Company, and Toronto: Bell and Cockburn: 1914.</ref>
- Living Masters of Music<ref>Rosa Newmarch, The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, London: John Lane/The Bodley Head and New York: John Lane Company, 1906. Retrieved 28 April 2020.</ref>
- The Music of the Masters<ref>Publisher's advertisement in: Rosa Newmarch, Poetry and Progress in Russia, London and New York: John Lane, 1907. Retrieved 28 April 2020.</ref>