D Appleton & Company
—Mr. Daniel Appleton, who was a dry goods merchant in Boston, moved and established himself in business in New York in 1825. He began the bookselling business at 16 Exchange Place by the importation of editions of English books. The bookselling business was soon carried on by Daniel Appleton’s eldest son, William H. Appleton. The first book published in this country by Mr. Appleton was a little volume entitled Crumbs from the Master’s Table, issued in 1831. William H. Appleton became a partner with his father in 1838, and the firm became D. Appleton & Company. In 1848, Daniel Appleton retired, and William H. and his brother, John A. Appleton, became partners in the business. Daniel Appleton died in 1849. His son, Daniel Sidney Appleton, became a partner in 1849, and later George S. Appleton and Samuel Francis Appleton, also sons of Daniel Appleton, became partners. D. Appleton & Company was incorporated in 1897. Mr. W. W. Appleton writes:
“I cannot give the exact time when educational books were first issued, but somewhat late in the 1830’s a number of such works were published, some of them in foreign languages—French, Spanish, and German—and in the 40’s several more were added. In the 1850’s the educational list became much more important and included Cornell’s Series of Geographies, Quackenbos’s standard textbooks, Perkins’ Arithmetics, Mandeville’s Readers, and a great number of educational books in the Spanish language. One of the most interesting publications was Noah Webster’s Elementary Spelling Book, which was originally issued in Hartford as the first part of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. D. Appleton & Company secured the publication of Webster’s Speller in 1855, and it sold nearly a million copies a year up to the beginning of the Civil War.”