The son of a Richmond bookseller, George Bell started business in London in 1839 as an educational book supplier. He rapidly identified a market for publications in areas which were to be mainstays of the business for one hundred and fifty years: school and university texts, theology, reprints of European classics and practical guidebooks. Bell acquired the Aldine Edition of British Poets in 1854 and from that time was also a recognised publisher of poetry. From 1860 Bell was the English publisher of Webster's Dictionary. Following the purchase in 1864 of the Bohn Libraries, consisting of more than 600 titles, the firm ceased bookselling and concentrated on publishing.
In 1894 the company began producing books for the colonial market, in Bell's Colonial and Indian Editions. George Bell and Sons purchased unbound copies of titles from other publishers, bound them with its own distinctive cover, and shipped them to various British colonies. The company, which had 50 agents in Australia in 1901, issued 1386 titles in this manner between 1894 and 1918.
From 1856 to 1873 when Frederick Daldy was a partner, the firm was known and Bell and Daldy; in 1873 it became George Bell and Sons, and in 1977 Bell and Hyman Limited. The firm went out of business in 1989.
