Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Little, Charles Coffin

LITTLE, Charles Coffin, publisher, b. in Kennebunk, Me., 25 July, 1799; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 11 Aug., 1869. He went to Boston early in life, and entered a shipping-house, and afterward the book-store of Carter, Hilliard, and Co. He subsequently became a member of the firm of Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, in which he continued until the formation of his partnership with James Brown in the year 1837, under the style of Charles C. Little and Co. This was subsequently changed, by the admission of other partners, to Little, Brown, and Co. The house were not only large publishers of standard works, but for many years the most extensive law-publishers in the United States, and also the largest importers of standard English law and miscellaneous works, introducing to American buyers the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” the dictionaries of Dr. William Smith, and many other standard works. The present (1887) head of the firm is John Bartlett (q. v.).