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As the UNC exhibit notes, Dent was deeply influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. Exemplified by the work of the artist William Morris, the furniture maker Gustav Stickley and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the movement trumpeted the value of skilled craftsmanship over the "soulless" products of modern factories. Hence the intricate detail in the design of the Everyman's books.

In addition, Dent operated his business out of the Letchworth Garden City. Forty miles north of London, this pioneering planned community combined the best aspects of the city and countryside. Businesses were kept separate from residential areas in a landscape marked by open spaces and shady trees -- beneath which Everyman and Everywoman might read.

"Dent's was among the first companies to shorten the workweek, to employ large numbers of women at equal pay, and to form a thrifty pension plan to benefit long-term employees," the pamphlet describing the UNC exhibit notes.

Dent died in 1926, but his firm continued publishing the Everyman's Library and a wide range of other books until its demise in the late 1980s. When the company's assets were auctioned off in 1991, UNC acquired many of Dent's records to add to its impressive collection documenting the history of publishing.

Alfred A. Knopf revived the imprint in 1991. While maintaining the tradition of offering high-quality books at a reasonable price, it has, through no fault of its own, been unable to continue the social mission that fueled the series.

The Everyman's Library thrived because it reflected the aspirational culture that once flourished among those for whom higher education was beyond reach. Before radio, TV and the Internet changed our definition of culture and knowledge, many working-class people (itself now a quaint term) agreed with the 19th-century English writer Matthew Arnold that we could come "to know ourselves and the world" only by encountering "the best that has been thought and said."

During the 20th century, that basic truth came to be branded as elitist. Notions of uplift and edification were dismissed as stuffy and archaic.

What bunk. And what a pity.

That's the message of the exhibit at UNC, articulated by John Milton in a quote that adorns the first volume of the Everyman's Library: "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life."

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