author
Joseph Hamblen Sears
1865–1946
A publisher, editor, and writer from Boston’s old New England world, he moved easily between literary journalism and the book trade. His career touched Harper & Brothers, D. Appleton & Company, and his own firm, and he also wrote works ranging from stories to biography and public affairs.
1 Audiobook
The Career of Leonard Wood
by Joseph Hamblen Sears
About the author
Born in Boston in 1865, Joseph Hamblen Sears studied at Harvard, graduating in 1889, and then spent time in Berlin and Paris. He came from a prominent New England family, but his own path led into publishing, editing, and writing rather than the sea trade that had helped build his family's fortune.
Sears worked for Harper & Brothers for about a decade and later became president of D. Appleton & Company. He eventually founded J. H. Sears & Company, giving his name to a publishing house of his own. His career placed him at the center of American literary culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and surviving correspondence shows that he moved in notable political and literary circles.
He also wrote books himself, including fiction, children's work, and nonfiction such as The Career of Leonard Wood. Though he is not widely remembered today, Joseph Hamblen Sears had a varied life in American publishing and letters, and his work reflects a time when editors, publishers, and authors often crossed freely between those roles.