George Putnam Upton (1834 – 1919) was an American journalist and author.

George Putnam Upton was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on October 25, 1834.^[1] He took an MA at Brown University in 1854, and soon after started writing for newspapers in Chicago. In 1862, Upton became the music critic for the Chicago Tribune.^[2] He became the senior editor at the Tribune in 1881 and remained in the post until 1905. A. C. McLurg & Co. published several of his books.

He married Sara E. Bliss in 1861. He remarried to Georgiana S. Wood on September 21, 1880.^[1]

Upton died from pneumonia at his home in Chicago on May 19, 1919.^[2][3] He was interred at Oak Woods Cemetery.^[4]

• The standard oratorios: their stories, their music, and their composers; a handbook (1866)
• Letters of Peregrine Pickle (1869)^[5]
• Woman in music (1880)
• The standard operas, their plots and their music (1885)
• The standard operas: their plots, their music, and their composers (1886)
• The standard cantatas; their stories, their music, and their composers; a handbook (1887)
• The standard symphonies, their history, their music, and their composers; a handbook (1888)
• Musical Pastels (1902)
• Theodore Thomas: A Musical Autobiography (editor) (1905)
• Musical memories : my recollections of celebrities of the half century, 1850-1900 (1908)
• The standard concert guide (1909)^[6]