"This study is based on archival research into not only Putnam's own papers but into the records of his business, the papers of other family members, and the archives of persons with whom Putnam had contact through business and social networks. In a detailed narrative, Greenspan weaves together the story of Putnam's life and that of the development of print culture in nineteenth-century America to offer a biography of this "representative American publisher.""--BOOK JACKET.