{{short description|English publisher}} {{about|the publisher|the singer|Sam Beeton}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} [[File:Samuel Beeton 1860.jpg|thumb|right|Samuel Beeton in 1860]] '''Samuel Orchart Beeton''' (2 March 1831 – 6 June 1877)<ref name="Johannsen">{{cite book |chapter-url=http://www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/beeton_samuel.html |title=The House of Beadle & Adams and its Dime and Nickel Novels: The Story of a Vanished Literature |first=Albert |last=Johannsen |volume=II |pages=32–3 |chapter=Beeton, Samuel Orchart. |publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]] |year=1950 |access-date=22 October 2009 |archive-date=3 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103171617/https://www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/beeton_samuel.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> was an English publisher, best known as the husband of [[Isabella Beeton|Mrs Beeton]] (Isabella Mary Mayson) and publisher of ''[[Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management]]''.<ref name="Johannsen"/> He also founded and published ''[[Boys Own|Boy's Own Magazine]]'' (1855–90), the first and most influential [[British boys' magazines|boys' magazine]].
==Publishing career== [[File:Boys Own Magazine Feb 1855.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Beeton's ''[[Boys Own|Boy's Own Magazine]]'', 1855–1890, was the first and most influential [[British boys' magazines|boys' magazine]].<ref name=tosh>Tosh, John. [http://www.ampltd.co.uk/collections_az/masc-3/description.aspx ''MASCULINITY, 1560-1918: MEN DEFINING MEN AND GENTLEMEN. Part 3: 1800-1918, Sources from the Bodleian Library, Oxford'']. Adam Matthew Publications.</ref><ref name="Boy's Own Magazine">{{cite web|url=http://www.philsp.com/data/data056.html#BOYSOWNMAGAZINE|title=Magazine Data File}}</ref>]]
Beeton made money as the first British publisher of ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' in 1852, securing the rights from the then-unknown [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]. He was clever enough to realise that it would sell and the underlying message of the story underwrote his politics. In the year it was published he launched ''[[The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine]]'',<ref name=sam>{{Cite ODNB|title=Beeton, Samuel Orchart (1831–1877), publisher and journalist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-45481|access-date=2020-11-14|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/45481}}</ref> a pioneering serial for middle-class women, the same year. His ''[[Boys Own|Boy's Own Magazine]]'', published in the UK from 1855 to 1890, was the first and most influential [[British boys' magazines|boys' magazine]].<ref name="tosh"/><ref name="Boy's Own Magazine"/>
Beeton married [[Isabella Beeton|Isabella Mary Mayson]] in 1856. She began writing for ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine'', and contributed to the growing success of the business.<ref name="Johannsen"/>
He founded ''[[Beeton's Christmas Annual]]'' [[paperback]] magazine in 1860 and in the following year he launched a weekly magazine titled "The Queen" about fashion and culture for upper-class women of society. The title was merged to "The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle" in 1864,<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Queen in British Newspaper Archive|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/the-queen|access-date=2020-11-14|via=[[British Newspaper Archive]]}}</ref> although Beeton had sold his interest in 1862 to [[Serjeant Cox]].<ref>{{Cite ODNB|title=Lowe, Elizabeth (1829–1897), journalist and newspaper editor|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-56286|access-date=2020-11-14|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/56286}}</ref>
In 1887 Beeton's Christmas Annual featured ''[[A Study In Scarlet]]'', a story by [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] which was also the first work of literature to feature [[Sherlock Holmes (character)|Sherlock Holmes]].<ref>{{Cite web | title = Sotheby's e-catalogue for Beeton's Lot 151 | url = http://www.sothebys.com/app/ecatalogue/fhtml/pdf.jsp?event_id=29971&id=151 | access-date = 2010-07-09 | page = 3 }}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
''[[Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management]]'' was published in 1861. Beeton followed it with a series of other self-help textbooks, including ''Beeton's Book of Needlework'', ''Beeton's Dictionary of Geography'', ''Beeton's Book of Birds'', ''Beeton's Book of Poultry and Domestic Animals'', ''Beeton's Book of Home Pets'', ''Beeton's Book of Anecdote, Wit and Humour'', ''Beeton's Dictionary of Natural History'', and others. He also produced an edition of the works of [[Francis Bacon]].
==Later life== [[File:WNC_Beeton.JPG|thumb|right|Headstone of Samuel and Isabella Beeton, West Norwood Cemetery.]]
After his wife Isabella died in 1865, Beeton's fortunes failed and he was obliged to sell the rights to the "Beeton" name to rival publishers, such as [[Ward, Lock & Co.]] and [[Frederick Warne|Frederick Warne & Co.]],<ref>[https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=%22Beeton%27s+Boy%27s+Own+Library%22&offset=1 Beeton's Boy's Own Library], worldcat.org. Retrieved 4 September 2025.</ref> and work for them for a salary. His last years were clouded by the [[tuberculosis]] from which he ultimately died, in 1877 aged 46.<ref name="Johannsen"/> He was buried in his wife's grave in [[West Norwood Cemetery]].
==Fiction== The 2006 TV drama ''[[The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton]]'', based in part on [[Kathryn Hughes]]' biography ''The Short Life & Long Times of Mrs Beeton'', implied that Isabella Beeton suffered from [[syphilis]] contracted from Samuel, and that this could have led to her early death and those of her first two children, and an alleged number of early miscarriages, although there is no evidence for this speculation.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{Internet Archive author |sname=Samuel Orchart Beeton}} *{{Internet Archive|29690004.1878.emory.edu|Beeton's book of acting charades (1880)}} * {{LCAuth|n83001395|Samuel Orchart Beeton|24|ue}} (some as 'Beeton, S. O.', previous page of browse report)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beeton, Samuel Orchart}} [[Category:English book publishers (people)]] [[Category:British magazine publishers (people)]] [[Category:19th-century deaths from tuberculosis]] [[Category:1830 births]] [[Category:1877 deaths]] [[Category:Burials at West Norwood Cemetery]] [[Category:Tuberculosis deaths in England]] [[Category:19th-century English businesspeople]]