The scenario for this mystery is neither new nor original. In its details, it shares many aspects with those of its type; a puzzle, ignorance of facts leading to misconceptions, heroes or heroines, and villains. The mystery: who is the real author of the Nancy Drew books?
The answer to this question began in 1884 with my great grandfather, Edward Stratemeyer, a 22 year old aspiring writer. He committed to a piece of wrapping paper a draft of a short story he had composed while employed in his uncle's tobacco shop. He submitted his work to Golden Days, a Philadelphia weekly, and he was rewarded with its publication. This sparked the beginning of his new career.
Stratemeyer wrote more short stories. Books followed rapidly and he developed character based series. He only once used his own name, preferring to employ nom de plumes. With his growing reputation, he was asked by ailing friend, Horatio Alger Jr., to complete his works. Following Alger's death, Stratemeyer was permitted to continue writing stories under Alger's name.
By 1890, his ambitions for completed books were only limited by his own resources. In 1905, he conceived an idea to realize his aspirations, and by 1915 he officially founded the Stratemeyer Writing Syndicate. His concept was that, in addition to writing his own stories to completion, to hire a collection of ghost writers to flesh out text from his additional outlined plots. These 'textings,' performed under his direction, were returned to him for editing and necessary rewriting. All final versions were published under his Syndicate pseudonyms with Stratemeyer maintaining full editorial control and authorship of his stories.
Edward Stratemeyer was prolific. Syndicate output was astounding. By 1930, 150 highly popular series, under 100 pen names, were in various stages of production. Included in these were such notables as The Rover Boys, The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Bomba the Jungle Boy, Tom Swift, Ruth Fielding, The Barton Books for Girls and The Outdoor Adventure Girls. Not even young women who were at last able to read books depicting girls like themselves in exciting adventures knew that their favorite stories, under various pseudonyms, were being produced by one person, a man.
Over 46 years, Stratemeyer personally wrote some 1,000 texts and story outlines for series books. His imagination delved into every aspect of life, even to the future, predicting scientific advances in his tales for Tom Swift. His empire was vast. The Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine declared that "as oil had its Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer." His passion resulted in the production of the most successful and widely read series of books for young men and women the United States and the world have ever known.
Suddenly, in 1930, the empire was threatened. Edward Stratemeyer died of pneumonia at age 68. His publishers were devastated. His wife, Magdalene Van Camp, was a semi-invalid and was unable to run the business, she had inherited. They could not find a buyer who was willing, or creatively able, to assume control. The responsibility, therefore, fell on his children, Edna and Harriet.
Harriet Stratemeyer entered the world in 1892 in Newark, New Jersey. She was highly intelligent and a bit of a tomboy. She excelled in school and has confessed to having been "the best one-handed fence vaulter" in her neighborhood. Raised very strictly by her parents, her earliest memories included admonishments concerning the quiet home atmosphere required for her father's work. Although Syndicate offices were located in New York, Edward Stratemeyer preferred to write from an office on the third floor of his home. He often 'descended' to test story lines on his family and delighted in posing riddles for his children at mealtimes. It was said that he could spin a bedtime story around any topic his children could imagine.
In 1910, Harriet entered Wellesley College. The college provided her not only with an excellent education, but also with the opportunity to indulge in the sports she loved, such as riding, sailing, tennis and swimming. She concentrated in Music (she was an accomplished pianist), Religion and English, and, not surprisingly, became interested in creative writing and journalism, editing the school newspaper. As college press correspondent, she sold articles to The Boston Globe, Newark Evening News and New Sunday Call. Harriet distinguished herself academically and personally. She was awarded a medal for bravery during the Tower Court dormitory fire, after reentering the burning building repeatedly to save her fellow students. In 1914, she graduated with honors.
After graduation, Harriet was offered three jobs: as pianist for a Boston church and as a journalist for newspapers in Boston and New York. Although her father depicted "modern" women in his books, he insisted that his own daughter's place was at home until marriage. Harriet was as strong-willed as her father, so a compromise was reached. Harriet went to work for the Syndicate from her home, editing ghost writers' fleshed-out text from her father's outlined stories.
Thus began Harriet's apprenticeship learning her father's formula for his books. On one such early occasion, she wrestled with a verbose description of a character's boating mishap. Realizing that the passage has to be trimmed, she consulted her father. He read it through, drew a line through virtually the entire text and simply wrote, "Suddenly, he fell overboard." This was Harriet's first lesson in the concise writing of adventure stories.
Harriet's writing for her father diminished following her marriage to Russell Vroom Adams and finally ended in 1915, after the arrival of the first of her four children, Russell Jr. (Sonny), Patricia (Patsy), Camilla, and my father, Edward Stratemeyer Adams. Harriet's father firmly advised that she should concentrate on her "babies." This advice she followed to a degree, finding time to found the New Jersey Wellesley Club and the Maplewood Women's Club's magazine, Members Chat. She volunteered for numerous organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, ran all the Sunday school lessons at the local Prospect Presbyterian Church and wrote poetry.
