In 1869, the firm published abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher-Stowe's comedy-drama novel, Oldtown Folks.

In 1872 and 1877, Osgood & Co. brought out Henry Wilson's three-volume account of the Civil War, The History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America.

Also in 1877 the firm sold the North American Review and published an edition of Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The second Osgood company published an edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in 1881 that was attacked by the Boston district attorney Oliver Stevens as "obscene literature".

[5] Osgood gave in to criticism and refused to bring out another edition, forcing Whitman to find another publisher.

[9][10] A fictionalized Osgood played a key role in Matthew Pearl's 2009 historical thriller The Last Dickens.