Carey & Lea (Philadelphia, Pa.)

He entered the bookselling and printing business in 1775 and, at the age of seventeen, published a pamphlet criticizing dueling. He followed this with a work criticizing the severity of the Irish penal code, and another criticizing Parliament. As a result, the British House of Commons threatened him with prosecution. In 1781 Carey fled to Paris as a political refugee. There he met Benjamin Franklin, the ambassador representing the American Revolutionary forces, which achieved independence that year. Franklin took Carey to work in his printing office.

Upon Carey's arrival in Philadelphia, he found that Franklin had recommended him to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who gave him $400 to establish himself. He used this money to set up a new publishing business and a book shop.

During Carey's lifetime, the publishing firm evolved to M. Carey & Son (1817–1821), M. Carey & Sons (1821–1824), and then to Carey & Lea (1824). Carey retired in 1825, leaving the publishing business to his son, Henry Charles Carey and son-in-law Isaac Lea.

Lea and Henry Carey made the business economically successful and, for a time, it was one of the most prominent publishers in the country. The business published such works as: The Encyclopedia Americana, a dictionary of German lexicon, as well as American editions of the works of authors Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper.