JOSEPH WHITAKER (1820-1895), English publisher, was born in London on the 4th of May 1820, and apprenticed to a bookseller at the age of fourteen. After a long experience with various bookselling firms, he began business on his own account as a theological publisher. In January 1858 he started the Bookseller, and for 1869 published the first issue of Whitaker's Almanack, the annual work of reference, which also met with immediate success. In 1874 he published the first edition of the Reference Catalogue of Current Literature, of which several editions have since appeared. Whitaker died at Enfield on the 15th of May 1895. He had been the father of fifteen children.