began to gather for Couch. Already under a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for an unregistered bond sale, Crowell Collier’s new management also held insider stock options and would profit personally from manipulating an increase in Crowell Collier’s stock price. Crowell Collier’s new directors, paper bag company executives with no publishing experience, pressured Ryan to loosen encyclopedia sales practices, lower customer credit standards, and cut Couch’s editorial budget. Ryan resisted, and despite generating record profits, was fired in April 1959. With his friend and ally gone, Couch’s days at P. F. Collier were numbered. Couch rebuffed a proposal by Crowell Collier’s chairman that the expanded revision of Collier’s Encyclopedia include one volume of equal page length for each letter of the alphabet. Unwilling to compromise his editorial standards, Couch was fired, following Ryan out the door in July 1959. In September 1959, after considering starting a new business with John Ryan, Couch joined publisher J. J. Little & Ives as Editorial Vice President. He left that position in 1966 and retired to North Carolina. Couch married Elizabeth Calvert circa 1925 and had two children, Elizabeth and Jane. He died in 1989 in Charlottesville, Virginia after a prolonged illness. References 1901 births 1989 deaths American encyclopedists American print editors University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina People from Pamplin, Virginia