Joseph P. Knapp, now the president of the
American Lithograph Company.
"I'll give you ten dollars apiece if you will write me a
one-hundred-word biography of one hundred famous Americans," was Mr.
Knapp's instant reply. "Send me a list, and group them, as, for
instance: presidents and vice-presidents, famous soldiers, actors,
authors, etc."
"And thus," says Mr. Knapp, as he tells the tale today, "I gave Edward
Bok his first literary commission, and started him off on his literary
career."
And it is true.
But Edward soon found the Lithograph Company calling for "copy," and,
write as he might, he could not supply the biographies fast enough.
He, at last, completed the first hundred, and so instantaneous was
their success that Mr. Knapp called for a second hundred, and then for
a third. Finding that one hand was not equal to the task, Edward
offered his brother five dollars for each biography; he made the same
offer to one or two journalists whom he knew and whose accuracy he
could trust; and he was speedily convinced that merely to edit
biographies written by others, at one-half the price paid to him, was
more profitable than to write himself.
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