Background
McKay was born in Dysart, Scotland, on June 24, 1860.
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David McKay
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At the age of 13, he began working for J. B. Lippincott & Company, learning the bookselling trade. Rees Welsh
By the age of 21, McKay was placed in charge of the miscellaneous catalog of books by publisher Rees Welsh. McKay’s notoriety as a publisher actually began while still working for Rees Welsh & Company, by bringing out Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass when another publisher, James R. Osgood & Company, had thrown it out because of threatened legal action by the attorney-general of Massachusetts for its “alleged immorality.”
David McKay Publications
In September 1882, with $500 of his own money and $2,500 in borrowed money and notes, McKay began his own publishing company on South 9th Street in Philadelphia.
At age 25, McKay published the first collected set of Shakespeare"s works in the United States.
The company also published Ace Comics, Blondie Comics, Dick Tracy, Mandrake the Magician (1938), and several other titles.
