Stratemeyer, Edward

Stratemeyer, Edward (1863–1930),author of several series of fiction for boys and girls, often under a variety of pen names. His most popular series includes 20 volumes of the Rover Boys (1899–1916) under the pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield, tales of preparatory school and college life, continued with ten volumes (1917–26) on the original boys' sons, and 40 volumes of works about the inventive Tom Swift (1910ff.). Other popular series include those about the peripatetic Motor Boys (1906ff.) and those for girls concerning the Bobbsey Twins, written under the name Laura Lee Hope. The Stratemeyer Syndicate (established 1914) produced books that Stratemeyer himself outlined and edited. All told, he is supposed to have written at least 150 full‐length, hardbound novels.

Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1894–1982), his daughter, continued all his series after her father's death, and expanded considerably on her father's three volumes about Nancy Drew, a girl detective whose exploits were described in works attributed to Carolyn Keene. Mrs. Adams was the major author of the Hardy Boys series, begun in 1927 by the Syndicate.