Joseph Dent started Everyman’s Library in 1906; David Campbell resurrected it in 1990.
It would be easy to fall in love with the beautiful Everyman’s Library literary classics, and while reading these gems, get swept away with the writing of Flaubert, Eliot, Dickens, Wharton, Tolstoy, et al. You could find yourself years-deep into the prose of Marcel Proust. Or you could get swept away with the poetry of Keats, the sonnets of Shakespeare, or the Psalms of the Old Testament – and finally, after all that reading and then some, say to yourself, “Wow, these books – with their erudite introductions, their cloth bindings, their silk ribbon bookmarks, and their wonderfully descriptive and beautiful dust jackets are incredible - who makes them?” – to which one would then see a name such as Random House on a copyright page or Knopf written in gold on one of the cloth spines – and with the discovery of these names, be satisfy as to their maker. Nice job Random House and on with your day you’d go. And you wouldn’t be wrong, for Random House does a great job – and then some!
But if any Everyman’s Library enthusiast decides or happens to dig further, one will quickly realize that without a gentleman by the name of David Campbell – the Publisher of Everyman’s Library/The Savior of the Everyman’s Library Imprint! – the modern day Everyman’s Library editions (what I collect and this website is dedicated to) simply would not exist.
In short, No David Campbell, No modern day Everyman’s Library!