The Rover Boys, or The Rover Boys Series for Young Americans, was a popular juvenile series written by Arthur M. Winfield, a pseudonym for Edward Stratemeyer. Thirty titles were published between 1899 and 1926 and the books remained in print for years afterward. [1]
The original Rover Boys were brothers Tom, Sam, and Dick Rover, the sons of wealthy widower Anderson Rover, who entrusted his brother and sister-in-law, Randolph and Martha, with the rearing of the boys. As the series progressed the brothers became smitten with Dora Stanhope and Nellie and Grace Laning, the daughter and nieces of a wealthy widow. [2]
The Rover boys' children (Fred, son of Sam Rover; Jack, son of Dick; Andy and Randy, twin sons of Tom) became the main characters of the "second series" that began with Volume 21, The Rover Boys at Colby Hall, published in 1917. The elder Rovers continued making appearances in the second series.
Additionally, there was a related Putnam Hall series of six books that featured other characters from the first Rovers series, although the Rovers themselves do not appear.
The Rovers were students at a military boarding school: adventurous, prank-playing, flirtatious, and often unchaperoned adolescents who were frequently causing mischief for authorities, as well as for criminals. The series often incorporated modern technology of the era, such as the automobile, airplanes (The Rover Boys in the Air) and news events, such as World War I.
The earliest volumes focused on the boys' travel adventures, but later stories were filled with mystery and suspense. [3]
From 1899 to 1906 The Mershon Co. published volumes 1 through 11; from 1906 to 1907 Chatterton-Peck Co. published volumes 1 through 11. Starting in 1907 Grosset & Dunlap began publishing the Rover Boys, eventually printing all 30 volumes. They published the series through at least the 1930s. Starting in the 1940s Whitman Publishing reprinted volumes 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 and 14. [3]
More than a million Rover Boys books were sold, and the titles remained in print by Grosset & Dunlap and later Whitman for years after the final title was published. The most commonly encountered are the green and brown cover editions published by Grosset & Dunlap during the 1910s and 1920s. While there are better-known and longer-running juvenile series such as The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift, the Rovers were very successful and influential. They established the template for all later Stratemeyer Syndicate series. [1] It was Stratemeyer's first series, and one of his favorites. Stratemeyer did all of the writing himself, rather than hiring ghostwriters. [1]
Some of these books are available for download free at Project Gutenberg.
Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.
The Stratemeyer Syndicate 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.
Tom Swift Jr. is the central character in a series of 33 science fiction adventure novels for male adolescents, following in the tradition of the earlier Tom Swift ("Senior") novels. The series was titled The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures. Unlike the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys titles that were also products of the prolific Stratemeyer Syndicate, the original Tom Swift stories were not rewritten in the 1950s to modernize them. It was decided that the protagonist of the new series would be the son of the earlier Tom Swift and his wife, Mary Nestor Swift; the original hero continued as a series regular, as did his pal Ned Newton. The covers were created by illustrator J. Graham Kaye. Covers in the later half of the series were mostly by Charles Brey. A total of 33 volumes were eventually published.
The Dana Girls was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, are teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while at boarding school. The series was created in 1934 in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys series, but was less successful than either. The series was written by a number of ghostwriters and, despite going out-of-print twice, lasted from 1934 to 1979; the books have also been translated into a number of other languages. While subject to less critical attention than either Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, a number of critics have written about the series, most arguing that the Dana Girls' relative lack of success was due to the more dated nature of the series.
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books were written by several ghostwriters, most notably Leslie McFarlane, under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.
Edward L. Stratemeyer was an American publisher, writer of children's fiction and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He was one of the most prolific writers in the world, penning over 1,300 books and selling more than 500 million copies.
The Secret of the Caves is Volume 7 in the original Hardy Boys series of mystery books for children and teens published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Radio Boys was the title of three series of juvenile fiction books published by rival companies in the United States in the 1920s:
The Motor Boys were the heroes of a popular series of adventure books for boys at the turn of the 20th century issued by the Stratemeyer Syndicate under the pseudonym of Clarence Young. This series was published by Cupples & Leon and was issued with dustjackets and glossy frontispiece. Howard Garis wrote many, if not all, of these stories.
The House On The Cliff is the second book in the original Hardy Boys series published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 72nd on the Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List in the United States with 1,712,433 copies sold as of 2001. This book is one of the "Original 10" Hardy Boys books and is an excellent example of the writing style used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate's writers. This style influenced many other "youth adventure series" books that the Stratemeyer Syndicate also published, including the Nancy Drew series, the Tom Swift adventure series, the Bobbsey Twins and other lesser known series. All of them used a unique writing style that made them very recognizable as Stratemeyer product.
The Clue of the Broken Blade is Volume 21 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
The Secret of Pirates' Hill is Volume 36 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Don Sturdy is a fictional character in the Don Sturdy series of 15 American children's adventure novels published between 1925 and 1935 by Grosset & Dunlap. The books were written by Victor Appleton, a house name used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. They were illustrated by Walter S. Rogers. The actual writer for all but one of the books was John W. Duffield. The remaining book, Don Sturdy In The Land Of Giants, or, Captives Of the Savage Patagonians (1930), was written by Howard Roger Garis.
The Ghost at Skeleton Rock is Volume 37 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Charles Nuttall was a prolific Australian artist, writer and radio broadcaster. He spent much of his working life in Melbourne, apart from a period in New York City from 1905 to 1910.
The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories is the long-running "main" series of the Nancy Drew franchise, which was published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. There are 175 novels — plus 34 revised stories — that were published between 1930 and 2003 under the banner; Grosset & Dunlap published the first 56, and 34 revised stories, while Simon & Schuster published the series beginning with volume 57.