James Brown was born on May 19, 1800 at Acton, Massachussets, the eleventh of thirteen children of Captain Joseph Brown, a Revolutionary veteran. The mother, Abigail Putnam, a second wife, was a woman of excellent understanding who encouraged this willing son to make good use of such schooling and books as a country town afforded.
In 1815 James Brown became a servant of Levi Hedge, professor at Harvard College, who gave him some instruction and directed his avid reading. It was a natural step when in 1818 he entered the employment of William Hilliard, publisher and bookseller at Cambridge.
After several upward movements, in 1837 Brown formed a copartnership with Charles C. Little, which later became Little, Brown & Company. They dealt in standard books, especially law and importations. Among their publications were works by Bancroft, Bowditch, Child, Dana, Greenleaf, Lieber, Parkman, Prescott, Sparks, Story, the United States Digest and United States Statutes at Large, the collected works of John Adams and Webster, a law review, and reprints of famous English authors.
Brown's special charge was the importations. He went abroad five times (1842 - 53) to make personal selections, becoming acquainted with John Murray, Pickering, Rodd, the Didots, Tauchnitz, and other great publishers and booksellers. The catalogues of the firm show the high quality of his choosing.
The 1854 catalogue gives 826 titles in foreign languages. This activity established Brown not only as a tradesman, but as a bibliophile; his store became the gathering place of those who made the Boston of that period a literary center.
James Brown's business brought him wealth, and in his later years he developed a country estate at Watertown, where he dispensed "becoming hospitality. " He was a patron of the Boston Athenaum, and the Natural History Society, a member of the Agricultural Society, and he bequeathed $5, 000 to the Harvard College Library.
Quotations: That of 1846 states that the "editions are generally those best fitted for Libraries, printed in large types and substantially bound--avoiding in these respects, the extremes of cheapness and extravagance. " There were imprints as early as 1657, and specially bound books are also listed "in morocco by Hayday. "
James Brown was a member of the Natural History Society and a member of the Agricultural Society.
Brown is described as of "vigorous tread, erect bearing and ample presence, " dignified, of perfect good temper, cheery, fond, when young, of practical jokes, and "remarkable for his insatiable love of knowledge. "
Brown was twice married: first in May 1825, to Mary Anne Perry, who died in October 1844, and then to Mary Derby Hobbs in April 1846.
