Charles L. Webster & Company

In May 1884, Mark Twain established his own subscription-book company and named it after his nephew Charles L. Webster (pictured at left), who had been working as Twain’s general business manager for his failing Kaolatype Company.  From 1884 to 1887 the company saw substantial success with its publication of Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs and the first American edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Once the company became a major publisher, they signed many new authors, including Leo Tolstoy and Walt Whitman.  None of them, however, were as profitable as Twain’s own books; Twain not only published new novels such as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Tom Sawyer Abroad, but he reissued many of his earlier books as well.

Webster & Company started to make a noticable decline around 1888.  It was then that Webster was forced out by Twain and replaced with Frederick Hall, who transformed the company into a trade publisher.  Hall was burdened with the task of keeping the company afloat while Twain spent most of its assets on the Paige Compositor, which was another one of his failed investments.

By April 1894, Webster & Company had to file for bankruptcy.  The New York Times reported the filing with the above headline the day after it occured at the County Clerk’s office, on April 19, 1894.