Minerva Press

Minerva Press was a printing establishment and publishing house in Leadenhall Street, London. It was known for issuing a set of trashy, extremely sentimental novels, in the late 18th and early 19th century. The fictions had typically complicated plots, in which hero and heroine were involved before they could get married. The establishment created a lucrative market for fictions. It was established by William Lane (c. 1745–1814) when he moved his circulating library there in about 1790. After Lane's death, his partner gradually dropped the name of the publishing house and started printing "A. K. Newman & Co" by 1820s.