Bernard Dornin

Who was Bernard Dornin?

Bernard Dornin was the first publisher in the United States of distinctively Catholic books.

He left Ireland in 1803, because of the political situation. Arriving in New York, he began a book-selling and publishing concern.

He got out a New Testament, printed for him in Brooklyn, in 1805, and an edition of Pastorini's "History of the Church", in 1807. He moved to Baltimore, in 1809, and from there to Philadelphia in 1817.

For many years he was the leading American Catholic publisher, with the support of Archbishop Carroll and of other members of the hierarchy. In the early 1830s he sold his business in Philadelphia, and retired to Ohio.