born Sept. 10, 1839, Clifton, Ohio, U.S.
died April 4, 1912
U.S. publisher.
He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1861 but resigned the pulpit in 1872 to travel in Europe and the Middle East. In 1877, with Adam Willis Wagnalls (1843–1924), he founded I.K. Funk & Co., later Funk & Wagnalls Co. (1891). The firm became best known for its Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1893), whose successors remained in print through the next century.