| 1807 | Charles Wiley opens a small printing shop in Manhattan, New York City. |
| 1814 | Wiley becomes a publisher and within five years begins to produce works by New York City’s literary set, notably Fitz-Greene Halleck, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper. |
| 1826 | John Wiley heads family business following his father’s death, launching a 65-year career in publishing. |
| 1836 | George Palmer Putnam becomes junior partner, a relationship that leads to the publication of outstanding contemporary writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Together they achieve prominence publishing such works as Herman Melville’s Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Mosses from an Old Manse. They published the works of European writers such as Hans Christian Andersen, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. |
| 1848 | Wiley & Putnam end their association. John Wiley broadens the Company’s publishing to include works on art, religion, architecture, agriculture, science, and technology. |
| 1865 | John’s son Charles joins the firm to form John Wiley & Son. |
| 1876 | William Halsted Wiley, another son of John, enters the business, creating John Wiley & Sons. |
| 1880 | The handbook Field Engineering by William Searles is published, evidence of William Halsted Wiley’s enthusiasm for engineering, railroads, and construction, marking a shift away from general-interest books and the marketing policies of his father. Wiley continues to expand into new fields, including electrical, civil and mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, agriculture, and chemistry. |
| 1890 | William O. Wiley, eldest son of Charles and a member of the fourth generation to work at Wiley, joins the Company. |
| 1891 | John Wiley dies at age 82. William Halsted Wiley becomes the new head of the Company. |
