Episode 35

He was again fortunate in that his desk was placed in the advertising department of the house; and here he found, as manager, an old-time Brooklyn boy friend with whom he had gone to school: Frank N.Doubleday, 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 learn the art at first hand and according to the best traditions.So, whenever his stenographic work permitted, he assisted Mr.Doubleday in preparing and placing the advertisements of the books of the house.

Mr.Doubleday was just reviving the publication of a house-organ called The Book Buyer, and, given a chance to help in this, Bok felt he was getting back into the periodical field, especially since, under Mr.

Doubleday's guidance, the little monthly soon developed into a literary magazine of very respectable size and generally bookish contents.

The house also issued another periodical, The Presbyterian Review, a quarterly under the editorship of a board of professors connected with the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries.This ponderous-looking 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 number, the periodical was rather difficult to move.Thus the whole situation at the Scribners' was adapted to give Edward an all-round training in the publishing business.It was an exceptional opportunity.

He worked early and late.An increase in his salary soon told him that he was satisfying his employers, and then, when the new Scribner's Magazine appeared, and a little later Mr.Doubleday was delegated to take charge of the business end of it, Bok himself was placed in charge of the advertising department, with the publishing details of the two periodicals on his hands.