" Bok now felt that he had given the
newspapers enough ammunition to last for some time; and he turned his
attention to building up a more permanent basis for his magazine.
The two authors of that day who commanded more attention than any
others were William Dean Howells and Rudyard Kipling. Bok knew that
these two would give to his magazine the literary quality that it
needed, and so he laid them both under contribution. He bought Mr.
Howells's new novel, "The Coast of Bohemia," and arranged that
Kipling's new novelette upon which he was working should come to the
magazine. Neither the public nor the magazine editors had expected Bok
to break out along these more permanent lines, and magazine publishers
began to realize that a new competitor had sprung up in Philadelphia.
Bok knew they would feel this; so before he announced Mr. Howells's new
novel, he contracted with the novelist to follow this with his
autobiography. This surprised the editors of the older magazines, for
they realized that the Philadelphia editor had completely tied up the
leading novelist of the day for his next two years' output.
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