The albatross was the _Library of American Literature_, edited by Stedman and someone else whose name I have forgotten. The original publisher, and the man who owned the copyright for the first six volumes of the series, was a man named Dibble. After Webster bought the series from Dibble, he hired the Cincinnati publisher as an aide. Webster and CSLC were locked in their final battle at this time, and Webster wanted to shore up his defenses at the firm by hiring a number of people on whose loyalty he could count. The series was actually prospectively profitable, but Webster contructed a payment scheme for it such that production would absorb massive amounts of capital before the long term profits would appear. The firm could have sold the series to a better capitalized publisher, except that they offered it for sale just when the panic of 1893 dried up capital and made every investor left leery of accepting any expensive debt. Fred Hall, Webster's successor, borrowed money to buty the remaining copyrights from Dibble, in order to be able to sell the whole series outright, and that is what began the wretched decline of Webster & Co. Andy Hoffman