Walter Montgomery Jackson

Who was Walter Montgomery Jackson?

Walter Montgomery Jackson was the founder of encyclopedia publisher Grolier, Inc., and he was the partner of Horace Everett Hooper in publishing the 10th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica and in developing its 11th edition. He split with Hooper in 1908-1909 in a nasty legal fight after failing to wrest control of the Britannica from Hooper,

Jackson founded the Grolier Society, which specialized in making extra-fine editions of classics and rare literature. The Society was named after the Grolier Club, which had been founded in 1884 to advance the arts involved in making books and which was named after a well-known French bibliophile, Jean Grolier de Servières.

After the split with Hooper he acquired the rights to publish the British The Children's Encyclopaedia under the name Book of Knowledge.

The Children's Encyclopedia was a 10-volume compilation of a popular children's journal of the same name founded and edited by Arthur Mee and published by Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe. Being an assembly of the journal issues, the encyclopedia was not organized alphabetically, but rather topically; navigation was assisted by an index in the final volume.