He started his working life as a servant in the family of Levi Hedge, a professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who instructed him in the classics and mathematics.

Augustus Flagg joined them in 1838 and became the publishing house's managing partner after the deaths of the two founders.

[3] In 1853, Little, Brown began publishing the works of British poets, from Chaucer to Wordsworth.

There were 96 volumes published in the series in five years, but Brown did not live to see its completion.

A life of James Brown, by George Stillman Hillard, was published in Boston, in 1855.