If you want to know more you should read "Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the
women who created her" by Melanie Rehak, Harcourt, c2005. I just finished
it and have already lent it to another retired librarian. It tells the
whole story of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and places Nancy and her authors in
the context of changing culture and role of women in society. It also talks
about the attitudes of librarians towards the books. I really enjoyed it
and had planned on recommending it on this list but hadn't gotten to it.
Thanks Karen for giving me a "push."
Joanne Proctor, retired LMS
Topeka, KS
joproctor@cox.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karen DeFrank" <knarfed@COMCAST.NET>
To: <LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:29 AM
Subject: [LM_NET] GEN: Edward Stratemeyer
> from The Writer's Almanac Oct. 4, 2007
>
>http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=278396&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=78e6a90f1c
>
>
> It's the birthday of Edward L. Stratemeyer,
> http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/11/08/041108crat_atlarge
> (books by this author)
> born in Elizabeth, New Jersey (1862), one of the first American writers to
> capitalize on the new market in children's literature created by universal
> primary school. At the time, most children's books taught moral lessons,
> but Stratemeyer said, "A wide awake lad has no patience with that which is
> namby-pamby. ... He demands real flesh and blood heroes who do something."
> Stratemeyer also figured that his books would sell better if they had
> recurring characters, so he created one series after another, the Motor
> Boys, the Outdoor Girls, the Bobbsey Twins. His work was so popular that
> he couldn't keep up with the demand, so he created the Stratemeyer
> Syndicate, incorporated in 1910, a kind of fiction factory with dozens of
> writers banging out dozens of novels under numerous pseudonyms.
> Stratemeyer wrote the outline for each book and made sure that each had
> exactly 25 chapters and that every chapter ended with a good cliffhanger.
> When detective fiction took off in the 1920s, Stratemeyer created a
> detective series for kids called the Hardy Boys, and it was his most
> popular series yet. He followed the Hardy Boys with a series about a girl
> detective named Nancy Drew. Publishers believed that books for boys always
> sold more than books for girls, but the Nancy Drew books were the most
> popular books that Stratemeyer ever published. Nancy Drew was also the
> last character Stratemeyer created himself. He died of a heart attack in
> 1930, the same year that the first Nancy Drew mystery came out. The title
> of the book was The Secret of the Old Clock. His syndicate ultimately
> published more than 700 titles, and it still sells about 6 million books a
> year.
>
> Karen DeFrank, LMS
> Bullock School
> Glassboro NJ
> kdefrank@glassboroschools.us
>
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