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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"

The editor's publicity sense made him realize how
valuable for his purposes was all this free advertising. The
paragraphers believed, in their hearts, that they were annoying the
young editor; they tried to draw his fire through their articles. But
he kept quiet, put his tongue in his cheek, and determined to give them
some choice morsels for their wit.
He conceived the idea of making familiar to the public the women who
were back of the successful men of the day. He felt sure that his
readers wanted to know about these women. But to attract his newspaper
friends he labelled the series, "Unknown Wives of Well-Known Men" and
"Clever Daughters of Clever Men."
The alliterative titles at once attracted the paragraphers; they fell
upon them like hungry trout, and a perfect fusillade of paragraphs
began. This is exactly what the editor wanted; and he followed these
two series immediately by inducing the daughter of Charles Dickens to
write of "My Father as I Knew Him," and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, of
"Mr. Beecher as I Knew Him.


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