Identity:

Samuel Sidney McClure was a journalist and publisher.

Life:

After an early career in jounalism and printing, he invented the idea of the newspaper syndicate in 1884, a highly successful move. The syndicate would purchase the work of authors such as Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and William Dean Howells and sell the publishing rights to newspapers across America. In 1893, he launched McClure's Magazine and as editor made it a profitable enterprise; it later became particularly known for its investigative journalism. Several years later in 1899, he at first bought but later cancelled the purchase of the publishing house Harper & Brothers with whom JW at one time negotiated over the American publication of his 'Ten O'Clock Lecture' (#02036).

Bibliography:

McClure, S. S., My Autobiography, New York, 1914; McClure Papers, Manuscripts Department, Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN, at http://www.indiana.edu (accessed 2003); McClure Publishing Company Archives, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library.