George Palmer Putnam was one of the leading American publishers of the nineteenth century. He was not only the founder of the firm of G. P. Putnam--later G. P. Putnam's Sons--but also the most active member of the trade in organizing publishing as a modern profession. He published works by many of the leading writers of the mid nineteenth century, including Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Margaret Fuller, Susan Warner, and Thomas Carlyle. He opened the first overseas branch of an American publishing house and engaged for many years in the international and rare-book trades in both New York and London. He published or edited periodicals important to the development of American culture. He promoted and patronized American authors and fought for international copyright protection for their works. Finally, he helped bring the New York Book Publishers' Association into existence. Putnam...