In March 1817, brothers James Harper and John Harper founded J. & J. Harper. In the 1820s, additional Harper brothers Joseph Wesley and Fletcher joined the company, and the Harpers changed the company's name to Harper and Brothers in 1833.

Lewis "Lew" Wallace, 1827-1905, was born in Brookville, Indiana, on 10 April 1827. He studied law before joining the Marion Volunteers from 1846 to 1847. After the war, he started a Free Soil newspaper in Indianapolis. He started practicing law in 1849. Wallace joined the Union army in 1861 and quickly became a Major General. In 1865, Wallace served on tribunals investigating the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the conduct of Confederate prison camp leader Henry Wirz. Wallace served as a major general in the Mexican army from 1865 to 1867 and then returned to Indiana, where he started writing his novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, which was published by Harper and Brothers on 12 November 1880. Wallace served as governor of the New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881 and the U. S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 to 1885. He continued writing when he returned to Indiana after these appointments. He died in Crawfordsville, Indiana, on 15 February 1905.

Fridtjof Nansen, 1861-1930, was born outside of present-day Oslo, Norway, on 10 October 1861. He enjoyed outdoor activities more than schoolwork and decided to study zoology at university so that he could spend as much time outdoors as possible. He left university in 1882 to study Arctic zoology on a sea voyage, and on his return he became a curator in the zoological department of the Bergen Museum. In 1888, Nansen led five other men on an expedition across Greenland. Thanks to this successful trip, Nansen was offered a position as curator of the Royal Frederick University's zoology collection. Between 1893 and 1895, he led a group of twelve men on an expedition to the North Pole. Harper and Brothers published his account of this journey in 1897. Nansen continued traveling and carried out a number of humanitarian campaigns during the rest of his life. He died in Lysaker, Norway, on 13 May 1930.