George Platt Brett Sr.

In 1874 George Platt Brett, joined the MacMillan as a traveling salesman, then succeeded his father, George Edward Brett, in the American office in New York in 1887.[4] George Edward Brett of England started the New York branch of Macmillan Publishing at Clayton Hall in 1869 under the recommendation of Alexander Macmillan.[5]

In 1890, the New York branch became an independent office and moved to Bond Street.[5]

In 1889, Brett was a founding member of the American Publishers Association.[6]

On 4 December 1900, Brett attended a reception and dinner for Mark Twain at the Aldine Club that "was the most notable event of the kind that has ever taken place at that club."[7]

In 1902, Brett became the first American publisher to visit London.[8]

In 1896, Brett was asked by the Macmillans to head the New York office. Brett instead insisted he become a partner in a new American corporation. "In 1896, the Macmillan house was divided into two newly established entities, The Macmillan Company in New York and Macmillan & Co., Ltd., of London. The two companies were both controlled by the Macmillan family (which retained about 61 percent of the American company's stock until the 1951 split); they freely shared titles and authors and made use of the company's worldwide network of sales branches established in the early twentieth century in such ports of call as Bombay (established 1901); Toronto (1904); Calcutta (1907); Melbourne (1912); and Madras (1913). Nevertheless, the creation of a separate company in New York was destined to have profound implications for the house of Macmillan, as the American organization outstripped its parent and eventually required complete independence at mid-century."[9]

Assisted Frederick Macmillan with the creation of Macmillan Company of Canada, a joint effort between Macmillan & Company and Macmillan Company of New York.[10]

In 1927, Brett testified at public hearings of the Patents Committee of the United States House of Representatives about a new national copyright law.[11]

Brett, though a native of Great Britain, was an advocate for American authors.[12]

During his tenure, Brett published Winston Churchill's novel Richard Carvel in 1899, Ellen Glasgow[13] Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in 1904,[14] Jack London's The Call of the Wild, William Butler Yeats, Liberty Hyde Bailey[15] and Francis Marion Crawford's Saracinesca.[16][17][18]

George Doran called Brett an "Emperor among publishers".[19]

Brett is credited with the identification and success of Jack London.[20] In a letter to Jack London, dated 27 December 1901, "Brett said he believe Jack's fiction represented 'the very best kind of work ' done in America and he wanted to publish all his future writings."[21]

Brett also was influential in the success of Winston Churchill. Churchill once observed Brett "has an undoubted genius for publishing, but he possesses likewise the higher genius of friendship."[22]

Led by Brett, the Macmillan Co. became prominent in American publishing by the 1930s as "the first American publisher to open branch offices across the country. ... Between 1895 and 1909 such semi-independent branches were established in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco."[9]

The Bretts remained in control of the American offices of Macmillan from its creation in 1869 to the early 1960s, "a span matched by few other families in the history of United States business."[9]