The company met particular success with series influenced by contemporaneous influences and trends; nearly two dozen books in The Boy Allies series centered around World War I, and upon the war's end the company's new offers explored topics such as aviation and wireless radio.

Eventually, with an eye towards retirement, Albert Burt's sons sold the company to Blue Ribbon Books in 1937.

[2] As a family genealogy put it, other than four months each winter at a small district school, "the rest of the year the farm itself was the alpha and omega of educational opportunities.

[2] During this time, according to the genealogy, Burt came to understand the market that existed for inexpensive artistic, literary, and household books, which many could not afford.

[1][4] He was a Republican,[4] and according to an obituary in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle had a "retiring disposition"; he was a member of only one organization, Plymouth Church, of which he served for years as a trustee.

[1] In 1891, having found publishing success in New York, he donated 100 volumes of his works to Belchertown's Clapp Memorial Library.

[16] In 1883 Albert Burt moved to New York City, and soon thereafter began using a small office at 105 John Street to publish books.

[18] According to the family genealogy, for this work he poured the entirety of his $900 savings into typesetting—providing for paper, printing, and binding on credit—and within ten years had sold some 250,000 copies.

[1] Late in the 1880s Albert Burt turned to inexpensive paperback fiction, which was then popular and would allow him to extend his reach, with his Manhattan Library line of books.

[16] He also wanted to publish so-called "good literature," and so at the same time began the Burt's Home Library line with 25 titles, eventually reaching 500.

[16] In 1887, Albert Burt launched the Boys' Home Library line of juvenile paperbacks,[20] with individual titles priced at 25 cents and a yearly subscription for $2.50; these appear to have been published concurrently with $1 hardcover editions of the same works.

[16] The titles, which included first editions as well as reprints, were by such authors as Horatio Alger,[21] James Otis, Harry Castlemon, and Edward S.

[22] Albert Burt's business grew rapidly, and between 1883 and 1900 he moved into larger offices in lower Manhattan at least four times.

[23] The company also issued a line of "illustrated cover" juvenile books between 1907 and 1911, with titles by authors such as Ellis, Otis, and Everett Tomlinson.

[23] With cheaper options readily available, the dollar books did not sell well; two first editions by Alger, In Search of Treasure and Wait and Win, are now scarce.

[33] A. L. Burt also published the Rocket Rider Series by Howard R. Garis, who until Edward Stratemeyer's death had been a prolific author for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing many of the early Tom Swift books; the plots of the first two books, Rocket Riders Across the Ice and Rocket Riders Over the Desert, resemble plot outlines in the Syndicate's archives for unpublished Tom Swift books, and may have been intended as such before Garis left for A. L.

[36] A. L. Burt maintained at least six New York addresses, in addition to a Chicago office, during its history, progressively moving into larger spaces.