Everyman's Library
publishing imprint of J.M. Dent and E.P. Dutton, later Random House

Everyman's Library is a series of reprints of classic literature, primarily from the Western canon. It began in 1906. It is currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent (itself later a division of Weidenfeld & Nicolson and presently an imprint of Orion Books), which continues to publish Everyman Paperbacks.
History
Everyman's Library was conceived in 1905 by London publisher Joseph Malaby Dent, whose goal was to create a 1,000-volume library of world literature that was affordable for, and that appealed to, every kind of person, from students to the working classes to the cultural elite. Dent followed the design principles and to a certain extent the style established by William Morris in his Kelmscott Press. For this, Dent asked the Monotype corporation to design a new typeface: Veronese was a remake of a foundry-face Dent had used before. Series 59 came out in 1912, and was made in the same style of the Golden Type, but with sharper slab serifs and cleaner lines. Now Dent was able to produce his texts with machines.
This old style was later replaced in 1935 by Eric Ravilious's designs.
The public source identifies “Everyman's Library” as publishing imprint of J.M. Dent and E.P. Dutton, later Random House. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Everyman's, Library and publishing.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5417845. VIAF identifies the subject as 179847764. The Library of Congress control number is n84705233. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1905, 1912 and 1935.
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This entry incorporates text from “Everyman's Library” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.