Frederick Warne

After being privately educated in Soho, at the age of fourteen, he joined his brother William Henry Warne (d. 1859), and his brother-in-law George Routledge, in the retail bookselling business which Routledge had founded in 1836 in Ryder's Court, Leicester Square.

[1] In 1865, on the advice of the publisher George Smith, of Smith, Elder & Co., Warne began an independent publishing career; he was joined by Edward James Dodd (a lifelong friend and colleague at Routledge's), and by A. W. Duret, who left the firm of Dalziel Brothers to join him.

[1] Warne effectively emulated Routledge's ambition to popularise well-regarded literature.

In 1868 he inaugurated The Chandos Classics:[2] there were 154 titles in the series, and five million copies were sold.

He died at his home, 8 Bedford Square, on 7 November 1901, and was buried at Highgate Cemetery.