Edward Payson Dutton established a bookshop in Boston in partnership with Lemuel Ide in 1852. When the pair acquired the premises of a religious bookseller, they began publishing religious works. Dutton bought Ide out in 1858 and E. P. Dutton and Company was formed, for many years continuing as a predominantly religious publisher. Dutton's owned the famous Old Corner Bookstore in Boston until 1869, when the firm finally settled in New York.
E. P. Dutton established relationships with many leading British publishers. From 1906, the company published, in association with J. M. Dent, the 1,000 volume 'Everyman's Library' of the world's greatest writing. When Edward Dutton died in 1923, control of the firm passed to John Macrae and Henry Clapp Smith. This relationship came to an end after five years, with Macrae taking over the publishing business and Smith retaining the retail store, renamed Dutton's, Incorporated. Macrae died in 1944 and was succeeded by his son Elliott; he in turn was succeeded by his brother John Macrae Jnr in 1968, and John Macrae Jnr III was made president in 1970. The company established a line of quality paperbacks, Dutton Paperbacks, in 1957.
In 1975 the company was purchased by Elsevier Publishing Company, and continued under the parent company American Elsevier. In 1981 it became a subsidiary of the JSD Corporation, where it published under a joint imprint with Seymour Lawrence and William Abraham. In 1985 Duttons was acquired by New American Library.
Throughout the leadership of Dutton and the Macraes, E. P. Dutton and Company flourished through the loyalty of its principals to its established authors, and their willingness to take a risk in publishing new ones.
