John Wiley & Sons: 200 Years of Publishing (original) (raw)

Birth of the New American Literature: 1807-1826

The subjects of Charles’s early publications ranged widely, but with time he identified two emerging growth areas: the works of American authors who were seeking to define a new national literature, and scientific, medical, and technical titles that would increase the fund of knowledge in the new American republic.

Charles lived and worked in the midst of a circle of young New York writers who were passionate about developing an American literature that defined its own boundaries on the global literary map. They were eager to defend their work and their country against what they considered the snide and dismissive judgments of British literary critics and travel writers. His bookstore’s back room became well known as the Den, a gathering place for writers and artists such as James Fenimore Cooper, Asher Durand, William Cullen Bryant, Samuel F. B. Morse, and Mordecai Manuel Noah. Later, when Cooper organized his Bread and Cheese Club (known as the Lunch), Charles was the only publisher asked to join. Charles’s ties to his literary friends were central to his business. As the publisher of four of Cooper’s novels, starting with The Spy, Charles became known as one of the founders of American literature.

In 1825, Charles and eight other bookmen combined to hold a more structured wholesale book auction, which helped create a more national market for books. Though he never traveled outside the U.S., Charles—with the help of Irving in particular—also looked beyond the national market to the U.K. and Europe. Despite his many contributions, Charles died intestate, and his wife quickly abandoned the bookstore. With no surviving portrait, Charles remains mostly a mystery, defined only by a small number of his letters and what little others wrote about him. Whatever the details, Charles entered the annals of American publishing and American literature as one of its founding fathers.