Where the Hardy Boys Really Came From

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Edward Stratemeyer (October 4, 1862 - May 10, 1930) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

He created the Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Rover Boys, and Tom Swift series, among others.

Stratemeyer pioneered the technique of producing long-running, consistent series of books using a team of freelance authors to write standardized novels, which were published under a pen name owned by his company. Through his Stratemeyer Syndicate Stratemeyer produced short plot summaries for the novels in each series, which he sent to other writers who completed the story, writing a specified number of pages and chapters. Each book would begin with an introduction of the characters and would be interrupted at the first cliffhanger for a quick recap of all the previous books in the series.

Stratemeyer's series were also innovative in that they were intended purely as entertainment, with little of the moral lessons or educational intent found in most other popular fiction of the early twentieth century. Instead, he produced straightforward action or mystery stories centered on idealized heroes and heroines.

Stratemeyer is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Hillside, New Jersey.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was the producer of a number of series for children and adults including the Nancy Drew mysteries, the Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, Dave Fearless and others.

The Syndicate was the brain-child of Edward Stratemeyer, whose ambition was to be a writer à la Horatio Alger. He succeeded in this ambition (eventually even writing eleven books under the pseudonym "Horatio Alger"), turning out inspirational, up-by-the-bootstraps tales.

Stratemeyer's business acumen, however, was in realizing that there was a huge, untapped market for children's books. Of course, boys devoured Horatio Alger, but they also read dime novels and penny dreadfuls. Here was an underground market waiting to be brought into the open and made even more profitable. In Stratemeyer's view, it was not the promise of sex or violence that made such reading attractive to boys; it was the thrill of feeling "grown-up," and the desire for a series of stories, an "I want some more" syndrome.

Accordingly, Stratemeyer began writing a series called The Rover Boys, in which he established some key practices:

• The books would, of course, be in a series;
• And to more quickly see if the series was likely to be successful, Stratemeyer had several volumes published at once, referred to as 'breeders' (turning out multiple books posed him no problems).
• The books would be written under a pseudonym. So Edward Stratemeyer might die, but "Arthur M. Winfield" didn't have to -- and "Carolyn Keene" and "Franklin W. Dixon" were then still alive.
• The books would look as much like contemporary adult books as possible -- same bindings, same type-faces.
• The books would be of predictable length.
• Chapters should end mid-situation, and pages too as far as possible, to increase the reader's desire to turn pages -- and thus his reading speed. Of course, one volume finished, one would want to turn to the next, assured it would be the same kind of thing.
• Each book would begin with a quick recap of all previous books in that series.
  

The Rover Boys was a roaring success, and Stratemeyer began writing other series books -- The Bobbsey Twins appeared in 1904 and Tom Swift in 1910. Some time in the first decade of the twentieth century Stratemeyer realized that he could no longer juggle multiple volumes of multiple series, and he began hiring ghostwriters, such as Howard Garis.

As it became apparent that mysteries were increasingly popular (this was in the golden age of the detective story), Stratemeyer decided to add mystery series to his repertoire.

The Hardy Boys appeared in 1927, ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane and others, and Nancy Drew appeared in 1930, ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson and others.

In 1930 Stratemeyer died and the Syndicate was inherited by his two daughters, Harriet and Edna (ironically enough, Stratemeyer had been a firm believer that a woman's place was in the home). Edna showed little interest and sold her share to Harriet within a few years. Harriet energetically took up the helm.

She introduced such series as The Dana Girls (1934), and Tom Swift, Jr., as well as The Happy Hollisters and many others, often short-lived.

In the 1950s, Harriet (by now Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) began a project of substantially revising old volumes in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, mainly to bring them up-to-date by removing references to "roadsters" and the like; racial slurs and stereotypes were also removed, and in some cases (such as The Secret of Shadow Ranch and The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion) entire plots were cast off and replaced with new ones.

In the early 80s, Adams decided it was time for Nancy and the Hardys to go into paperback; the hardcover market was no longer what it had been. Grosset & Dunlap, however, loath to lose massive profits, sued, and the ensuing case let the world know, for the first time, that the Syndicate existed. The Syndicate had always gone to great lengths to hide its existence from the public; ghostwriters were contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship. Many ghostwriters remain unknown.

Grosset & Dunlap lost the suit, and in 1987, after the death of Adams in 1982, Simon & Schuster purchased the syndicate from the syndicate partners - Edward Stratemeyer Adams, Camilla Adams McClave, Patricia Adams Harr, Nancy Axelrod and Lilo Wuenn.

Viva Fidel...dammit

You've tried soaking them out...

You've tried scrubbing them out...

And still you get - ring around the collar!

Monroe doctrine notwithstanding, Democrat and Repulican presidents have had to put up with this guy pretty much hating our guts consistently for more than forty years, and he's still alive.

What a point of reflection on America's ability to influence the world.

How we got to the degree of world infuence we enjoy today is a very, very complex combination of diplomatic blunders and triumphs, military brilliance, espionage, and sheer will. What has been consistently successful for us?

Well, not broad-scale use of covert ops. For one thing, Americanism should stand for transparency, I think. When faced with terrible consequences of infuence wrought by our sworn enemies, we're tempted to go to the dark side. The fact that so many lives would be saved by one wee, well-placed assisination...and if that initiative is uncovered, we have a great loss of face to bounce back from.

We remain the greatest nation in the world. That's partly due to our military competency, to be sure. But it's much more attributable to our standing as an example of the best in human conduct.

Covert ops are not consistent with that.

Well, we learned our lesson with Fidel and decided, a long time ago, to leave his beard alone. Good call. But even those Americans who might be brought to a degree of grudging admiration for the guy's sheer tenacity have to admit that his people would very likely now be better off were he dead. He has maintained a grip on power through the worst, most coercive means, and has lately made decisions which have caused even more poverty to his own people. We were hoping against hope that this would end soon, even though good Christians are never called to wish somebody dead.

I guess this is why they say only the good die young.