Subsequently, Scott sold the World to Jay Gould, who also acquired Scott's interest in the Texas & Pacific. However talented, Hurlbert was ill-suited to edit a newspaper. His circle of elite friendships and his rarefied aesthetic sensibilities distanced him from the mass public. He did little to make the paper popular. Instead its circulation dwindled and it lost money. In early 1883, Gould threatened to sell the "World", but Hurlbert asked for a reprieve while attempting to put it “on a paying basis.” He fired many editors and reporters, but did not succeed for long in staving off the inevitable. A few months later, Joseph Pulitzer bought the "World" from Gould. Unlike Hurlbert, Pulitzer knew how to attract readers. “The Diary of a Public Man” was published anonymously in 1879 when Hurlbert was editing the "World" and at the height of his power and influence. It claimed to offer verbatim accounts of secret conversations between a long-time Washington insider and Stephen A. Douglas, William H. Seward, and Abraham Lincoln himself—among others—in the desperate weeks just before the start of the Civil War. Historians have long been frustrated in pinpointing the Diary's author or determining its authenticity. Frank Maloy Anderson, writing in 1948, concluded that Gilded Age lobbyist Sam Ward (1814–1884) wrote the Diary, but that its contents were substantially concocted. But in 2010, historian Daniel W. Crofts reopened the Diary to fresh scrutiny. He believes Hurlbert to be the author, based on striking parallels between the Diary and Hurlbert's distinctive writing style. Crofts also paired with statistician David Holmes to use stylometry, the statistical analysis of literary style, which delivers a verdict that reinforces the case for Hurlbert. Crofts notes that the Diary was not a diary. It was instead a memoir, probably written shortly before it appeared in print in 1879. The word “Diary” was intentionally misleading. But Crofts also contends that the Diary's contents were largely genuine—aside from its fabricated hocus-pocus regarding a nonexistent diarist. The Diary repeatedly introduces previously concealed information that was corroborated only after its publication. It contains precise details regarding the struggle to shape Lincoln's cabinet, the composition of his inaugural address, and the secret negotiations between Seward and anti-secession leaders in Virginia. The Diary reflected Hurlbert's distinctive outlook, which was neither Northern nor Southern.