It would not be very easy to think of two
men who have done a greater service to English culture than Ernest Rhys, who died last week, and J. M. Dent, who died twenty years ago. Honours may be distributed evenly between them, for if the con- ception of the 'Everyman • Library' was Rhys's, it needed courage on the part of the publisher to float the series at a shilling a volume, the price at which it remained till the first German war. The name Everyman was Rhys's choice ; he selected the volumes and edited many of them himself, the first to appear—in 1906—being, inevitably, Boswell's Johnson. 'Every- man' was not the first series of reprints to bring great literature to the people ; Professor Henry Morley's "Universal Library" did in- valuable work half a century and more ago. But Everyman has covered a far wider field than any other, and by the attractiveness of its make-up has added to the appeal its contents would naturally make. So far 983 volumes have been produced. But for the war, the thousand mark would have been reached long ago. What it has meant in the way of self-education to millions of people is beyond calculation. For all that, the major share of credit goes to the quiet little man with a grey beard who died a week ago.
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