Robert Evans Peterson (November 12, 1812 – October 30, 1894) was an American book publisher and author.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, with a medical degree in 1863, but never practiced medicine.
In order to absolve the debt of his clients, Daniels & Smith, booksellers, purchased their business, and operated it as R. E. Peterson & Co.[3] On the death of John Bouvier in 1851, he partnered with George W. Childs and established the publishing house of Childs & Peterson, which became involved in 1857–58.
[4] He died on October 30, 1894, at his summer residence in Asbury Park, New Jersey[5] and was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
[3] He published Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Institutes of American Law; Dr. Kane's Arctic Explorations; Brazil and Brazilians, and numerous text books, and was the author of: The Roman Catholic Church not the Only True Religion (1891).