The firm was founded in 1778 by John Deighton (1748–1828), a master
bookbinder, and was located in "narrow, early eighteenth-century premises" which was particularly important to the university's library in that era before the introduction of the
Uniform Penny Post throughout the United Kingdom and before the coming of the
railways to all parts of the country. Between 1813 and 1827 the firm was operated as a
partnership between the founder and his two sons, John Deighton the younger (1791–1854) and Joseph Jonathan Deighton (1792–1848), trading as John Deighton & Sons. Following the elder John Deighton's retirement in 1827, the firm traded as J. & J. J. Deighton. Beginning in 1848, following Joseph's death, the firm traded as J. Deighton. In 1854 the firm was acquired by the educational publisher
George Bell of
George Bell & Sons, following which it became known as Deighton, Bell, and Company. In 1876 it was publishing, jointly with George Bell & Sons and
Whittaker & Co., a number of
textbook series for the secondary school and university markets. During the twentieth century the firm concentrated mainly on bookselling of both new and
secondhand books. While its publishing activities had mostly ceased, in 1932 the firm published and distributed
F. R. Leavis's literary quarterly
Scrutiny. From 1967 the firm devoted itself exclusively to antiquarian bookselling. ==Book series==