John Camden Hotten (1832 - 1873)

John Camden Hotten

John Camden Hotten was a British publisher, writer, linguist and bibliophile.

By mid-1855, Hotten had opened a small bookstore in London and then established his own publishing business, which after his death became Chatto & Windus. Hotten's publishing house published many works by classic and contemporary writers. After spending about six years in America, he was the first to introduce a number of American writers to the British public, including James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Bret Harte.

Hotten compiled The Dictionary of Modern Slang, Slang, and Vulgar Words, first published in 1859 and reprinted many times thereafter. His other major work is A Handbook of Topography and Family History of England and Wales (1863). Hotten also wrote and edited literary and biographical material in various periodicals.

Hotten was a collector, author, and secret publisher of erotic works, which were illustrated, among others, by the famous caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827).