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." 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.