 In September 1882, with $500 of his own money and $2,500 in borrowed money and notes, McKay began his own publishing company on South 9th Street in Philadelphia.At age 25, McKay published the first collected set of Shakespeare’s works in the United States.By December 1905, McKay had absorbed many rival publishing houses into his own, and was publishing books in almost every popular genre of the time, including world literature, textbooks, and a number of children’s books.