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39-596: With her sister, Edna, Adams took over control of the Stratemeyer Syndicate after her father Edward Stratemeyer 's death in 1930. Edna ran the daily business operations, while Adams dealt with publishers and wrote; Edna became inactive when she married in 1942, and Adams took over the business. Adams is credited with keeping the Syndicate afloat through the Great Depression , and with revising

78-569: A Ted Scott Flying Stories book, published in Germany in 1930 as Ted Scott Der Ozeanflieger. The artwork was generally changed when reprinted in other countries, and sometimes character names and other details were as well. For example, in Norway, translations of the Nancy Drew books were first published in 1941, the first European market to introduce the girl detective. “The translators changed

117-524: A few did not involve any crime. While many of the early volumes were constructed from whole cloth, with little or no connection to the real world, by 1917 ( The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City, vol. 9, rewritten in 1960 as The Bobbsey Twins' Search in the Great City ) they visit real places, and by the 1950s ( The Bobbsey Twins at Pilgrim Rock vol. 50), those visits to real places were as well-researched as any fictional visits to real places. By 1971, when

156-512: A ripple effect, because the original The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank was a sequel to the original Baby May. Thus, a second book, The Bobbsey Twins and the Four-Leaf Clover Mystery, was written. It incorporates little material from the original. Starting in 1987, a numbered series of paperback originals branded The New Bobbsey Twins were released by Minstrel Books, an imprint of Pocket Books . Featuring all-new stories,

195-515: The Rover Boys . For decades, libraries refused to carry any Syndicate books, considering them to be unworthy trash. Series books were considered to "cause 'mental laziness,' induce a 'fatal sluggishness,' and 'intellectual torpor. ' " Series books were considered to ruin a child's chances for gaining an appreciation of good literature (which was subsequently shown by one study not to be the case), and to undermine respect for authority: "Much of

234-642: The 1930s and the second, with different cover art, in the 1950s. Victor Appleton ; Richard Barnum ; Gerald Breckenridge ; Nicholas Carter ; Lester Chadwick ; Allen Chapman ; Alice B. Emerson ; Howard Roger Garis ; Mabel C. Hawley ; Laura Lee Hope ; Gertrude W. Morrison ; Margaret Penrose ; Homer Randall ; Roy Rockwood ; Frank V. Webster ; Arthur M. Winfield ; Mildred A. Wirt (Benson) ; Clarence Young Not found 2023 as Gutenberg authors: Franklin W. Dixon; Carolyn Keene; Eugene Martin Bobbsey Twins The Bobbsey Twins are

273-413: The 1960s rewrites of 1–4, 7, 11–13, and 17, are attributed to June Dunn. Grace Grote is regarded as the author of 60–67 and the rewrites of 14 and 18–20, and Nancy Axelrad is credited with 68–72. Of the 1960s rewrites not mentioned, volumes 5 and 16 are credited to Mary Donahoe, 6 and 25 to Patricia Doll, 8–10 and 15 to Bonnibel Weston, and 24 to Margery Howard. In the original editions, the first books in

312-616: The Bobbseys visited Colonial Williamsburg ( The Bobbsey Twins' Red White and Blue Mystery, vol. 64), real places were depicted in meticulous detail, down to the names of well-known hotels and restaurants (and, in that particular case, the color of Colonial Williamsburg shuttle buses). It is said vol. 68, The Bobbsey Twins on the Sun-Moon Cruise, was the result of a research trip for a proposed Nancy Drew book: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Nancy Axelrad (her personal assistant at

351-522: The Moss-Covered Mansion ) entire plots were cast off and replaced with new ones. In part, these changes were motivated by a desire to make the books more up-to-date. Grosset & Dunlap , the primary publisher of Stratemeyer Syndicate books, requested that the books' racism be excised, a project that Adams felt was unnecessary. Grosset & Dunlap held firm; it had received an increasing number of letters from parents who were offended by

390-496: The Syndicate existed; the Syndicate had always gone to great lengths to hide its existence from the public, and ghostwriters were contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship. Grosset & Dunlap was awarded the rights to The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew volumes that it had published, but the Syndicate was judged free to take subsequent volumes elsewhere. Subsequent volumes were published by Simon & Schuster . Adams died in 1982. In 1984, Simon & Schuster purchased

429-703: The Syndicate was inherited by his two daughters, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier. Stratemeyer Squier sold her share to her sister Harriet within a few years. Harriet Stratemeyer introduced such series as The Dana Girls (1934), Tom Swift Jr. , The Happy Hollisters , and many others. In the 1950s, Harriet began substantially revising old volumes in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, updating them by removing references to outdated cultural elements, such as "roadster". Racial slurs and stereotypes were also removed, and in some cases (such as The Secret at Shadow Ranch and The Mystery at

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468-626: The UK). These other series first appeared around the 1950s outside the United States. The second Stratemeyer Syndicate series to be reprinted outside the United States appears to have been the first two books in the Don Sturdy series, although exact dates of printing are unknown. Those were The Desert of Mystery and The Big Snake Hunters . There are two British versions known of the latter book; both were printed by The Children's Press, one in

507-541: The black cook and handyman, were portrayed. The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May received the most extreme rewrite; it is a story about the Bobbsey family's adventures searching for the parents of a foundling baby. Since, by the 1960s, sheer numbers of government agencies rendered the original story utterly implausible, an entirely new novel was written about the twins' adventures with a baseball-playing baby elephant ( The Bobbsey Twins' Adventures with Baby May ). This, however, had

546-411: The books published under a number of pseudonyms which he controlled." Stratemeyer explained his strategy to a publisher, writing that "[a] book brought out under another name would, I feel satisfied, do better than another Stratemeyer book. If this was brought out under my own name, the trade on new Stratemeyer books would simply be cut into four parts instead of three." Some time in the first decade of

585-609: The color of Nancy's car, shortened the text, and made the language easier to read; but they made no substantive changes” to the stories. By the 1970s, Nancy Drew stories had “been translated into Spanish, Swedish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. Other series reprinted outside the States include The Dana Girls , The Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins (in Australia, France, Sweden, and

624-636: The contempt for social conventions ... is due to the reading of this poisonous sort of fiction." Franklin K. Mathiews, chief librarian for the Boy Scouts of America , wrote that series books were a method, according to the title of one of his articles, for "Blowing Out the Boys' Brains", and psychologist G. Stanley Hall articulated one of the most common concerns by asserting that series books would ruin girls in particular by giving them "false views of [life] ... which will cloud her life with discontent in

663-546: The cover paintings were dust-jacket paintings added in the 1950s (for earlier versions, a single common dust-jacket painting was used throughout an edition), but most were new with the "purple" edition. In all, twenty were completely rewritten, all but two with modernized titles, while sixteen were never released in this edition, evidently deemed to be dated beyond repair. Most of the rewrites were motivated by changing technology (automobiles replacing horses and buggies) or changing social standards, particularly in how Sam and Dinah,

702-880: The family business only after her father's death. She resided in Maplewood, New Jersey , and in Pottersville, New Jersey , an area within Tewksbury Township . She lived in Pottersville at her estate, Bird Haven New Jersey and died of a heart attack while watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time. Adams was interred in the Stratemeyer crypt in Fairmount Cemetery in Newark. Stratemeyer Syndicate The Stratemeyer Syndicate

741-453: The first book was written. The two sets of twins aged as the series went on. As the series continued, the two sets of twins were perpetually aged at 12 and 6. Edward Stratemeyer is believed to be the writer of the first volume in its original form in 1904. When the original series was brought to its conclusion in 1979, it reached a total of 72 volumes. At least two attempts to restart the series were launched after this, but neither effort saw

780-530: The future". None of this hurt sales and Stratemeyer was unperturbed, even when his books were banned from the Newark Public Library as early as 1901, writing to a publisher: "Personally it does not matter much to me. ... Taking them out of the Library has more than tripled the sales in Newark." Some syndicate series were also reprinted in foreign countries. An early foreign version was

819-467: The later books in the series (and revised editions) take place in a sort of chronological stasis , with the older twins perpetually 12 years old and the younger set 6. The earliest Bobbsey books were mainly episodic strings of adventures; with the growing popularity of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew , detective plots began to dominate the series. Few of the mysteries involved violent crime, and quite

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858-650: The opposite sex", but arguing the distinction between boy-twin and girl-twin "makes a world of difference": Bert "acts out his manhood by winning contests and beating the town bully, Danny Rugg", while his twin Nan – throughout the series "too old for dolls and pranks, too young for boys and barred from their games" – spends most of her time in the books "wagging her finger at Freddie and appearing to enjoy it", acting as "mini-parent, non-child, serious-minded little manipulator". From Weinstein's Bobbsey Twins Bibliography (list last revised September 18, 1999) Re-imagined versions of

897-509: The popularity the original series achieved. Speculation that Stratemeyer also wrote the second and third volumes of the series is believed to be incorrect; these books are attributed to Lilian Garis , wife of Howard Garis , credited with volumes 4–28 and 41. Elizabeth Ward is credited with volumes 29–35, while Harriet Stratemeyer Adams is credited with 36–38, 39 (with Camilla McClave), 40, 42, 43 (with Andrew Svenson ), and 44–48. Volumes 49–52 are attributed to Andrew Svenson , while 53–59, and

936-537: The principal characters of what was, for 75 years, the Stratemeyer Syndicate 's longest-running series of American children's novels, written under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope . The first of 72 books was published in 1904, the last in 1979, with a separate series of 30 books published from 1987 through 1992. The books related the adventures of the children of the upper-middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins : Bert and Nan, who were eight years old, and Flossie and Freddie, who were four when

975-481: The pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield in 30 volumes between 1899 and 1926, which sold over five million copies. The Bobbsey Twins first appeared in 1904 under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope , and Tom Swift in 1910 under the pseudonym Victor Appleton . Stratemeyer published a number of books under his own name, but the books published under pseudonyms sold better. Stratemeyer realized that "he could offer more books each year if he dealt with several publishers and had

1014-434: The pseudonym Carolyn Keene . Adams outlined a few in the Hardy Boys series, which were published under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon . Although Adams claimed to write all the Nancy Drew books entirely by herself during her lifetime, it is well established that Wirt and 28 other authors did the actual writing, following Adams's ideas and embellishing on them. Adams touched up the completed manuscripts. Harriet Stratemeyer

1053-559: The pseudonym Chester K. Steele . Five more books were published in that mystery series, the last in 1928. These books were aimed at a somewhat older audience than his previous series. After that, the Syndicate focused on mystery series aimed at its younger base: The Hardy Boys , which first appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane and others; and Nancy Drew , which first appeared in 1930, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson , Walter Karig , and others. Both series were immediate financial successes. In 1930, Stratemeyer died, and

1092-475: The series (like those in previous Stratemeyer series) took place in a clear chronology, with the characters aging as time passed. The Bobbsey Twins: Merry Days Indoors and Out took place over the course of a school year, with Nan and Bert described as eight years old and Freddie and Flossie four. The second book, The Bobbsey Twins in the Country is set at the beginning of the following summer. The second part of

1131-596: The series ended with volume 30, The Mystery of the Mixed-Up Mall , in 1992. In her book The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature , Maria Nikolajeva refers to the twins as a "simple duplication of protagonists". Bobbie Ann Mason , in The Girl Sleuth: A Feminist Guide , differs, agreeing the books afford the child-reader an opportunity to imagine "a union with someone just like her, but of

1170-456: The stereotypes present in the books, particularly in The Hardy Boys publications. In the late 1970s, Adams decided it was time for Nancy and the Hardys to go into paperback, as the hardcover market was no longer what it had been. Grosset & Dunlap sued, citing "breach of contract, copyright infringement, and unfair competition". The ensuing case let the world know, for the first time, that

1209-633: The summer is chronicled in The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore , which is written as a direct sequel to the previous book, tying up some plot threads. The fourth book, The Bobbsey Twins at School , begins the next autumn, with Nan and Bert "nearly nine years old" and Freddie and Flossie "almost five." Editors at the Stratemeyer Syndicate quickly realized, at this rate, their young heroes would quickly age beyond their readership, so

Harriet Adams - Misplaced Pages Continue

1248-505: The syndicate from its partners — Edward Stratemeyer Adams, Camilla Adams McClave, Patricia Adams Harr, Nancy Axelrod and Lilo Wuenn — and turned to Mega-Books, a book packager, to handle the writing process for new volumes. "They don't have hippies in them," [Adams] said ... "And none of the characters have love affairs or get pregnant or take dope." All Stratemeyer Syndicate books were written under certain guidelines, based on practices Stratemeyer began with his first series,

1287-443: The time) took an eclipse cruise but, when they returned, the publisher was more interested in a new Bobbsey title. In 1960, the Stratemeyer syndicate rewrote most of the older volumes, many of which became almost unrecognizable in the process. This was concurrent with the release of a new edition of the series, with picture covers, no dust jackets, and a lavender spine and back cover (replacing earlier various green bindings). Many of

1326-552: The twentieth century Stratemeyer realized that he could no longer juggle multiple volumes of multiple series, and he began hiring ghostwriters , such as Mildred Benson , Josephine Lawrence , Howard R. Garis and Leslie McFarlane . Stratemeyer continued to write some books, while writing plot outlines for others. While mystery elements were occasionally present in these early series, the Syndicate later specialized in children's mystery series. This trend began in 1911, when Stratemeyer wrote and published The Mansion of Mystery , under

1365-657: The two most popular series, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, in the 1950s and 1960s, removing stereotypes and streamlining plots and characters. She ran the Syndicate for 52 years. The extremely popular Nancy Drew books were the brainchild of Adams's father, who created the characters of a sixteen-year-old sleuth, her lawyer father, and their housekeeper. Later, Nancy's age was increased to eighteen to give her more independence. Adams came up with plot ideas and hired ghostwriters to flesh them out. The best-known books were written primarily by Mildred Wirt Benson , all published under

1404-414: Was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew , The Hardy Boys , the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins , the Rover Boys , and others. It published and contracted the many pseudonymous authors who wrote the series from 1899 to 1987, when it was sold to Simon & Schuster . Created by Edward Stratemeyer , the Stratemeyer Syndicate

1443-580: Was born in Newark, New Jersey , on December 12, 1892, the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer and Magdalena Van Camp. At a young age, Adams wanted to break free from being a "proper, young lady who should stay at home". She climbed trees, made friends with local boys, and loved books from an early age. Adams graduated from Wellesley College in 1914. Her father forbade her to work outside the estate, so she edited manuscripts at home. In 1915, she married Russell Vroom Adams, and raised four children, becoming involved in

1482-561: Was the first book packager to have its books aimed at children, rather than adults. The Syndicate was wildly successful; at one time it was believed that the overwhelming majority of the books children read in the United States were Stratemeyer Syndicate books, based on a 1922 study of over 36,000 American children. Stratemeyer's business acumen was in realizing that there was a huge, untapped market for children's books. The Stratemeyer Syndicate specialized in producing books that were meant primarily to be entertaining. In Stratemeyer's view, it

1521-431: Was the thrill of feeling grown-up and the desire for a series of stories that made such reading attractive to children. Stratemeyer believed that this desire could be harnessed for profit. He founded the Stratemeyer Syndicate to produce books in an efficient, assembly-line fashion and to write them in such a way as to maximize their popularity. The first series that Stratemeyer created was The Rover Boys , published under

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