The Americanization of Edward Bok

e," "Literary Leaves,"

spapers under the most favorable conditions. With one stroke, the attention of newspaper editors had been attracted, and Edward concluded to take quick advantage of it. He organized the Bok Syndicate Press, with offices in

f any distinctive material for women was a factor. He talked the matter over with several prominent New York editors, who frankly acknowledged that they would like nothing better than to interest women, and make them readers of their papers. But they were equally frank in confessing that they were ignoran

man's letter from New York. He instinctively realized that women all over the country would read it. He sought out the author, made arrangements with her and with former Govern

to the idea of supplying an entire page of matter of interest to women. The plan was proposed to a number of editors, who at once saw the possibilities in it and promised support. The young syndicator now laid under contribution all the famous women writers of the day; he

that could not get the rights for the "Bok Page," as it came to be known, started a "Woman's Page" of it own. Naturally, the material so obtained was of an inferior character. No single newspaper could afford what the syndicate, with the expense divided among a hundred newspapers, could pay. Nor had the editors of these woman's pages either

is time is and must be engrossed by the news and editorial pages. He usually delegates the Sunday "specials" to some editor who, again, has little time to study the ever-changing women's problems, particularly

with he either forgets it or refuses to give the editor of his woman's page even a reasonable allowance to spend on her material. The result is, of course, inevitable: pages of worthless materia

, as a whole, was not reading the number of books that it should, considering the intelligence and wealth of the people, and the cheap prices at which

canvassed the newspapers subscribing to his syndicate features, but found a disinclination to give space to literary news. To the average editor, purely literary features held less of an appeal than did the fe

George Parsons Lathrop in that paper by a column of literary chat called "Literary Leaves." For a number of weeks he continued to write this department, and confine it to the New York paper, feeling that he need

was the first to discover that his paper wanted the letter, and the Boston Journal followed suit. Then the editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star discovered the letter in the Ne

use of the importance of the Scribners, and he immediately placed himself in communication with Mr. Charles Scribner, with the result that in January, 1884, he entered the employ of these publishers as stenographer to the two members of the firm and to Mr. Edward L. Burlingame, literary adviser to the ho

ary letter, to the arrangement or editing of articles for his newspaper syndicate, to the steady acquirement of autograph letters in which he still persisted, or to helping Mr. Beecher in his literary work. The

ollowed him in the friendships he had made, and in the men with whom his life, at its most formative period, had come into close contact. If we are inclined

eading authors of the day, their works as they were discussed in the correspondence dictated to him, and the authors' terms upon which books were published. In fact, he was given as close an insight as it was p

ing writers of the day; its general list was particularly noteworthy; and its foreign department, importing the leading books brought out in Great Britain and Europe, was an outstandin

ting the best short stories published within a decade for a set of books to be called "Short Stories by American Authors." The correspondence for this series was dictated to Bok, and he decided to read after Mr. Bur

l the preliminary correspondence was dictated to Bok through his employers, and he received a first-hand educati

leday, to-day the senior partner of Doubleday, Page and Company. Bok had been attracted to advertising through his theatre programme and Brooklyn Magazine experience, and here was presented a chance to le

in this, Bok felt he was getting back into the periodical field, especially since, under Mr. Doubleday's guidance,

ooking magazine was not composed of what one might call "light reading," and as the price of a single copy was eighty cents, and the advertisements it could reasonably expect were necessarily limited in n

ew Scribner's Magazine appeared, and a little later Mr. Doubleday was delegated to take charge of the business end of it, Bo

He had, in addition, the charge of sending all the editorial copies of the new books to the press for review, and of keeping a reco

ater the author the less he seemed to care about his books once they were published. Bok noticed this, particularly, in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose work had attracted him, but, although he

moment to interest the author in the popular acclaim that followed the publication of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyd

er went over his proofs more carefully than did Stevenson; his corrections were numerous; and sometimes for ten minutes at a time he wou

ed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco-in short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so Bok felt, was an au

or read some amended paragraph out loud and ask whether Bok thought it sounded better. To pass upon Stevenson as a st

wever, was immensely interesting, particularly when Stevenson would ask Bok to hand him a book on words lying on an adjacent table. "So hard to find just

uthor how his book was being received, and was selling, what the house was doing to advertise

he bundle and he

about it, haven't you, so why should I read these notices? Hadn't I better get busy on another paper for Mr. Burlingame

ntrast to that of others who came almost daily into the office to see what the papers said, often causing discomfiture to the young advertising director by insisting upon taking the notices with them. But Bok a

d best-known books of the day: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy; And

by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a novel like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing th

choose?" asked the

asked the butler to bring me another spoon, and then, with a spoon i

n. The ticket agent recognized the author, and promised to get him a desirable

room," answ

, and then said: "To tell you the

n it he purposed to give it a definite ending. But when he reached the end he didn't know himself which to produce out o

tockton's story may sound strange, but for months it was the

. Frost had become a full-fledged farmer with one hundred and twenty acres of Jersey

und a way at last to make a farm stop ea

of hopeful news he looked up, his eyes ki

ll

to see that the way was

solid,

rs of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield's method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the S

an to read it. Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last a

e had great hopes for it, but somehow or

ng the public about it in t

ntion of the publishing world, and this publisher was entire

d Bok. "I think I could make

dvertise it?" as

"broadside" of extracts, to which the book easily lent itself, wrote some literary notes about it, and sent the whole collection to the publisher.

ard Bellamy's "L