Charles L. Webster and Co.

In 1884, author and journalist Samuel Clemens, popularly known as Mark Twain, founded the subscription publishing firm of Charles L. Webster and Company. The firm was named after Clemens' niece’s husband Charles L. Webster whom Clemens appointed the firm's business director. The formation of the company came out of Clemens' dissatisfaction with his previous publishers including Charles H. Webb, Elisha Bliss, and James R. Osgood. Clemens wanted to earn a dual income as both author and publisher of books. The first two American publications of the firm, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1885) were highly successful. The Ulysses S. Grant memoir publication in particular financially helped Grant and his family at a time when Grant was sick having been diagnosed with throat cancer. Grant was former President of the United States and top commanding general during the Civil War and Reconstruction. After Grant died, Clemens gave Grant's widowed wife, Julia, a substantial record royalty check of $200,000 dollars. According to Webster, prior to his death, Grant dictated the last part of the second volume to a stenographer working for the firm, due to writing fatigue, starting with Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Webster, who accompanied the stenographer, respected Grant's reputation and honored Grant's request to keep secret from reporters that Grant dictated part of the book.

Other books later published by the firm were not as successful and soon Clemens had to reinvest profits back into the firm to make up for losses. In 1888, as the company financially suffered, Clemens fired director Charles L. Webster, who was at odds with him on how to run the firm successfully. Webster, himself, had been overworked traveling throughout the United States visiting the firm's principle agents. As the firm grew deeper in debt, Clemens was forced to shut down the business having formally declared bankruptcy on April 18, 1894. The firms most productive years, although to no avail financially, took place from 1891 to 1893. Notable authors published, including Clemens, were Leo Tolstoy, Henry George, and Walt Whitman.

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