Edward Stratemeyer
by James D. Keeline

The Stratemeyer Syndicate, Edward Stratemeyer,

proprietor, of Newark, N.J. and New York City, can
use the services of several additional writers in the
preparation of the Syndicate’s books for boys, books
for girls and rapid-fire detective stories.

These stories are all written for the Syndicate on its

own titles and outlines and we buy all rights in this
material for cash upon acceptance. Rates of pay-
ment depend entirely upon the amount of work ac-
tually done by a writer and the quality of the same.
All stories are issued under established trademarked
pen names unless otherwise agreed upon.

At the present time the Syndicate has about five

hundred books for boys, books for girls and books
for little children on the market, also about twenty
detective stories--all issued at a popular price. The
Syndicate books have, of course, nothing to do with
Mr. Stratemeyer’s own books for boys which now
number over a hundred.
In sending in applications, (to be made by mail only
directed to the editorial offices, 315 Fourth Ave., New
York City) authors might include a list of stories al-
ready issued or send stories, published or other-
wise. All manuscripts submitted will be given care-
ful consideration, and while we will not hold our-
selves responsible for manuscripts sent in, we will
do our best to have them safely returned.
We are particularly anxious to get hold of the
younger writers, with fresh ideas in the tratment of
stories for boys and girls.
After Leslie McFarlane answered an April 1926 adver-
tisement in The Editor for a writing assignment, Edward
Stratemeyer wrote back to offer him an opportunity to
write a volume in one of two series, either Dave Fear-
less or Nat Ridley.1 He chose the former and wrote
seven volumes in that series, including one, Dave Fear-
less at Whirlpool Point, which was not published before
Stratemeyer gave up on the series due to weak sales.
He next gave McFarlane a chance to write the first
Hardy Boys volume.
Today, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are seen as
some of the longest-lived and most-successful juvenile
series books. Indeed, the character names are house-
hold words in the United States and in many other
countries, and the characters have appeared on film and
television as well as in hundreds of printed books. They
became so successful that some people think that they
were instantaneous successes which were published as
a result of the growing American interest in the mys-
tery genre.
The mystery genre did become the major product of the
Stratemeyer Syndicate with several other series created
to attempt to duplicate the success of the Hardy Boys
and Nancy Drew, including the Dana Girls, Kay
Tracey, the Bobbsey Twins, and the Happy Hollisters.
However, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series had
humble beginnings, especially when compared with
their own success in later decades. Recently revealed
sales figures2 for 1925 to 1935 show that while the
Hardy Boys held their own in sales, they were not as
successful as some of their contemporaries.
As seen in the sales figures, the Hardy Boys series’
sales were about one half that of the other “Franklin W.
Dixon” series, Ted Scott. This is not unusual consider-
ing the public interest in Charles Lindbergh’s solo
transatlantic flight which was the model for the first

Sales of Some Popular Stratemeyer Syndicate Series, 1925-1935

Average Sales Per Volume
1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935
Bobbsey Twins 19,203 19,168 19,344 19,497 18,619
Tom Swift 16,907 18,553 18,821 17,465 14,397
Ted Scott 17,791 21,788 20,575 14,418 8,702 4,544 2,438 3,072 2,457
Hardy Boys 9,416 9,806 9,961 9,697 8,593 7,479 4,007 5,663 5,228
 The Ted Scott and Hardy Boys Series, 1927-1935
Total Sales per Year
1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935
Ted Scott 71,163 152,513 205,748 187,435 121,821 72,710 39,005 52,227 44,122
Hardy Boys 28,247 58,836 79,690 87,274 85,388 74,794 40,072 56,626 47,051

volume. The years before the Great Depression saw a
general increase in overall and per-volume sales of Syn-
dicate series books. Stratemeyer also increased the
amount he paid to his writers during this period as a
result.
the stories. Shortly after this purchase, Stratemeyer re-
wrote one of these stories, “Vasco the Magician
Detective” into “The Mystery of the Limited Express”
by “Ed Strayer” which was published in People’s Liter-
ary Companion in April 1906.

However, as the Great Depression took hold at the same
time when Stratemeyer’s daughters were struggling to
take over their father’s business, sales declined precipi-
tously. The Syndicate lowered the commission for
hardcover books from $150 down to $85. The reason
for this was that the Syndicate’s income from these se-
ries dropped both in terms of average sales per volume
and in total sales for a given year. The next table shows
the cumulative sale for the Ted Scott and Hardy Boys
volumes. The Syndicate’s income from each volume
was four cents.
By April 1934, when Ayres Brinser’s anonymous ar-
ticle was published in Fortune, “For It Was Indeed He,”
sales of Nancy Drew volumes exceeded that of the best-
selling boys’ series of the time. However, this was in
the middle of the Great Depression and no one could
imagine the tremendous sales which would come a gen-
eration and nearly twenty years later when the parents
of the Baby Boomers purchased series books in record
numbers.
Walther’s 1987 article was followed by the realization
by Deidre Johnson in 1988 that these stories were re-
used as plots in the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Nat Ridley
Rapid-Fire Detective Stories series which were pub-
lished by Garden City in 1926 and 1927.7 This was
additional evidence to show that Stratemeyer never al-
lowed any of his literary properties to remain idle if he
could help it.
Perhaps we should have known all along that
Stratemeyer was involved in these stories since Old Cap
Collier was mentioned as one of his writing venues in
the Fortune article which used material supplied by his
daughters, Edna Stratemeyer and Harriet S. Adams.8
When Dr. Johnson’s article was published, access to the
Stratemeyer Syndicate business records was only a dis-
tant dream and the connections had to be made the hard

Edward Stratemeyer’s connection to the mystery genre

began much earlier, however. His first experiment was
a short serial called “Revenge! or, the Newsboy’s Ad-
venture” of which the first installment was published in
his small amateur story paper called Our Friend in Au-
gust 1876 when Stratemeyer was just thirteen years old.
By 1892, Stratemeyer’s professional writing career was
well under way and he was producing dime novel mys-
teries for Street & Smith. Between 1892 and 1895 he
wrote 22 stories in the Nick Carter Library.3

Around the same time, he was offering somewhat simi-

lar stories to one of Street & Smith’s major competitors,
Norman L. Munro,4 in the form of dime novel myster-
ies published in the Old Cap Collier Library under a
personal pseudonym of “Ed Strayer.” The connection
of these eleven stories to Stratemeyer was made in a
discovery in 1987 by Peter C. Walther among copy-
right transfers on file at the Copyright Office.5 These
records show that Stratemeyer purchased the stories on
20 Jun 1902 for $220.00.6

Over the years, Stratemeyer made many attempts to sell

 Old Cap Collier stories by Edward Stratemeyer as “Ed Strayer”
Based on a list in The Dime Novel Round-Up issue 552 (August 1988).
448 6 Aug 1892 “Dash Dare the Detective” NR #1
458 15 Oct 1892 “Dash Dare on His Mettle”
473 21 Jan 1892 “Jack Sharpley, the Always-Ready Detective” NR #5
560 8 Sep 1894 “Dash Dare on Time” NR #3
604 6 Jul 1895 “Dash Dare’s Man Hunt” NR #2
627 14 Dec 1895 “Dash Dare on Stage” NR #7
661 6 Jun 1896 “Old Spangle, the Circus Detective” NR #8
704 5 Jun 1897 “Battery Boice, the Electrician Detective” NR #10
724 23 Oct 1897 “Waldo, the Wizard Detective” NR #9
737 22 Jan 1898 “Placer Dan, the Yukon Detective” NR #6
757 11 Jan 1898 “Vasco, the Magician Detective” NR #4

Nat Ridley Rapid-Fire Detective Stories series

Source Ghost Release Date Published
1 Guilty or Not Guilty OCC #448 HRG 24 Nov 1925 2 Jan 1926
2 Tracked to the West OCC #604 HOS 23 Nov 1925 21 Jan 1926
3 In the Nick of Time OCC #560 HRG 20 Nov 1925 21 Feb 1926
4 The Crime on the Limited OCC #757 HRG 28 Nov 1925 21 Mar 1926
5 A Daring Abduction OCC #473 RCG 22 Dec 1925 21 Apr 1926
6 The Stolen Nuggets of Gold OCC #737 HRG 21 Jan 1926 21 May 1926
7 A Secret of the Stage OCC #627 HRG 17 Feb 1926 21 Jun 1926
8 The Great Circus Mystery OCC #661 HRG 8 Mar 1926 21 Jul 1926
9 A Scream in the Dark OCC #724 HRG 30 Mar 1926 21 Aug 1926
10 The Race Track Crooks OCC #704 HRG 27 May 1926 21 Sep 1926
11 The Stolen Liberty Bonds new outline HRG 30 Jun 1926 21 Oct 1926
12 In the Grip of the Kidnappers new outline HRG 17 Jul 1926 21 Nov 1926
13 The Double Dagger new outline HRG 29 Sep 1926 21 Dec 1926
14 The Mountain Inn Mystery new outline HRG 7 Oct 1926 21 Jan 1927
15 The Western Express Robbery new outline RCG 29 Oct 1926 21 Feb 1927
16 Struck Down at Midnight new outline RCG 19 Nov 1926 not published
17 Detective Against Detective new outline not written not published
way, by comparing the “Ed Strayer” stories with the
“Nat Ridley” ones. At the time of publication, she ac-
curately attributed the use of “Jack Sharpley” but the
assertion could not be proven because the original Old
Cap Collier text was not available.

However, now we have access to more than 300 archive

boxes filled with letters and other business records which
can definitively answer questions which could be only
speculated upon previously. The releases at NYPL9 for
the Nat Ridley series confirm the connection to the Old
Cap Collier stories and reveal some interesting details.

Stratemeyer’s good friend and the most prolific ghost-

writer for the Syndicate, Howard Garis, adapted most
of the Old Cap Collier stories into Nat Ridley yarns.
This was apparently easy work for him since he com-
pleted three of these in a one-week period in late
November 1925.

One rewrite was completed by his son, Roger Garis, as

his first Syndicate assignment. Years later when Roger
wrote his memoir, My Father Was Uncle Wiggily
(McGraw-Hill, 1966), he described how he was assigned
to rewrite a dime novel called “The Buffalo Hunters”
into a volume in the X-Bar-X Boys series.10 Roger
wrote the first six volumes in this series but none of the
correspondence mentions a dime novel rewrite like the
letters for the Nat Ridley rewrites do. Also, part of the
NYPL collection are full outlines for each of the X-
Bar-X Boys volumes. Finally, none of the literary
properties owned by Stratemeyer was called “The Buf- Harriet Otis Smith, Stratemeyer’s secretary, was respon-
falo Hunters.” The closest example was a single volume, sible for one of the Nat Ridley rewrites. Prior to 1914,
The Trail Boys of the Plains; or, The Hunt for the Big Stratemeyer had conducted most of his Syndicate busi-
Buffalo (Sully, 1915), by “Jay Winthrop Allen” (W. Bert ness from a home office in the upstairs portion of his
Foster). This suggests that Roger misreported which home in the Roseville section of Newark, New Jersey.
series volume was rewritten from a dime novel either During that period he employed an outside proofreader,
due to a faulty memory or because he thought that the Louis H. Patterson of Maplewood, to help with reading
hardcover X-Bar-X Boys series was more recognizable the manuscripts.
than the Nat Ridley series of pulp paperbacks.
Smith first contacted Stratemeyer in April 1914 with an
As each Old Cap Collier story was rewritten to be- unsolicited manuscript called “The M.R.D.T. in the
come a volume in the Nat Ridley series, Stratemeyer Kentucky Mountains.” In the letter, she stated that she
prepared a list of name changes for the characters and a also did typewriting and dictation. In his reply, he asked
page of plot and structure changes. if she had ever taken down stories of 4,000 to 5,000
words a day.11 She replied affirmatively. Stratemeyer
Perhaps the greatest surprise was the discovery that Miss opened his office at Madison Square in the Pullman
Building in mid-October 1914. This placed him closer
to the various publishers’ offices in New York City who
published his books.12 Perhaps it is not a coincidence
that Nat Ridley’s office in the stories was at Times
Square? When Stratemeyer made the offer to Smith he
stated, “possibly I might be able to try you on original
work, as you stated that was what you some-day hoped
to do.”
Smith proved to be a very capable assistant. In addi-
tion to taking down Stratemeyer’s correspondence,
outlines and stories by dictation, which he praised highly
for her ability to transcribe dialogue including dialect,
she also read the stories and prepared summaries so he
could ensure that the ghostwriters were following the
outlines supplied. Stratemeyer stopped using outside
proofreaders at this point.
Harriet Otis Smith ran the Syndicate offices during
Stratemeyer’s vacations and provided him with valu-
able insights, as reflected in the letters written to him
during these annual respites. Smith continued to run
the office after his death while Stratemeyer’s daughters
handled the details of the estate and tried unsuccess-
fully to sell the company. When the sisters made a
decision to move the Syndicate offices to New Jersey
at the end of 1930, she resigned not wanting to com-
mute each day from New York city. The sisters hired
Agnes Irene Pearson Albaugh (1901-1989) but they
heard from Miss Smith from time to time13 and she even
referred some ghostwriters to the Syndicate, including
Grace May North Monfort (1876-1960), who wrote
some volumes in the X-Bar-X Boys series.14
After ten of the eleven Old Cap Collier stories had
been adapted into Nat Ridleys, Stratemeyer asked
Howard Garis to write additional stories based on full
outlines. Later Roger Garis wrote two of these, includ-
ing one which was not published.
One of the unanswered questions was why “Dash Dare
on His Mettle,” a story which was modeled loosely on
the Lizzie Borden murder case, was not used as a Nat
Ridley. It turns out that the story had already been
adapted into a book several years before and was pre-
sumably still in print in a reprint edition as The Mansion
of Mystery by “Chester K. Steele.”15
When Stratemeyer’s rewrite of his Old Cap Collier
story was published by Cupples & Leon in 1911, he
was trying to branch out into the field of novels for
adults. At the same time, he issued a book called Jess
of Harbor Hill, the first volume in the Harbor Hill
Romances, through the same publisher. The Mansion
of Mystery was also to be the first in a series, followed
by The Disappearance of John Darr.16
Howard Garis wrote two mysteries under the “Chester
K. Steele” name based on Stratemeyer’s outlines, The
Diamond Cross Mystery (Sully, 1918) and The Golf
Course Mystery (Sully, 1919). However, neither of these
stories were very good. In fact, when W. Bert Foster
reviewed one of these at Stratemeyer’s request, he com-
mented that
the young man is beginning to draw character pretty
well; yet he gets off the track a good deal. That is lack
of experience. He introduces people and incidents with-
out seeing how they will “finish.” ...I really believe
this writer will some day turn out a first-class story.
Nearly a decade later, Foster wrote three Steele stories
which were first published in Detective Story magazine:
The Crime At Red Towers (E.J. Clode, 1927), The House
of Disappearances (Chelsea House, 1927), and The
Great Radio Mystery (Chelsea House, 1928).17
In addition to these published “Chester K. Steele” sto-
ries, another Syndicate ghostwriter, Elizabeth Duffield
Ward, wrote two drafts of a manuscript called “In the
Lightning Flash” in 1922. Stratemeyer could not find a
book or magazine publisher for this story.18
Shortly after he turned in the initial Hardy Boys stories
in February 1927, Leslie McFarlane was asked to write
a story called “The Mystery Ranch” which was to be
published in a pulp magazine and eventually in book
form under the “Thomas K. Holmes” pseudonym, a
name used for three other western stories for adults.19
After McFarlane completed the manuscript, it was of-
fered to several magazines without success. Stratemeyer
even let McFarlane offer it to the magazines with whom
he had contact. After Stratemeyer died in May 1930,
McFarlane returned the manuscript to the Syndicate.
As stated at the beginning, Edward Stratemeyer’s most
enduring connection to the mystery genre is through
the long-running Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series.
The Hardy Boys were proposed to Grosset & Dunlap in
August 1926 as negotiations with Garden City for the
Nat Ridley and other paperback series were underway.
When he made the proposal for the Hardy Boys, there
was a growing interest among the reading public for
mystery stories and Stratemeyer felt that young people
would enjoy them as much as adults did. There were
special considerations for these stories imposed by
Alexander Grosset. Subtitles were discontinued, spe-
cific references to crimes would be avoided in the titles,
and the types of crimes would be limited.
The initial three titles were chosen in early September
and Stratemeyer sent the outlines to Leslie McFarlane
in early November 1926, after he had finished the manu-
script for Dave Fearless and the Lost Brig which was
the last published volume. Another manuscript, “Dave
Fearless at Whirlpool River,” was written by McFarlane
but not published.
After receiving the manuscript for the first Hardy Boys
volume, The Tower Treasure, Stratemeyer wrote to
McFarlane to tell him about changes which might in-
fluence the other volumes he was writing. The size of
Bayport would go from 100,000 down to 50,000. He
also complimented McFarlane, “it was a good idea to
have Chet get off some of his jokes in the early part of
the book.”20
When Stratemeyer received the published versions of
the first three Hardy Boys books, he complained to
Grosset & Dunlap that he didn’t like the dark blue ink
in the sky on the dust jacket of The Tower Treasure. He
also spotted a typographical error in The Secret of the
Old Mill.21 He outlined six more volumes in the series
which were written by McFarlane.
Mildred Augustine (1905-) began writing for
Stratemeyer in 1926. She replied to the same adver-
tisement that McFarlane saw in The Editor. Her first
work for the Syndicate was to continue the Ruth Field-
ing series begun by W. Bert Foster.
Both Leslie McFarlane and Mildred Augustine were
young people and they shared the milestones in their
lives with Stratemeyer. In return, he congratulated
McFarlane on willing the MacLean’s literary prize,22
his theatrical venture,23 his marriage and success with
Mystery Stories magazine,24 and the birth of his daugh-
ter.25 Similarly, he offered to congratulations to Mildred
Augustine upon her masters degree received from the
University of Iowa26 and her marriage.27
Stratemeyer had extensive criticisms for Mildred
Augustine’s first Ruth Fielding volume. By the sec-
ond volume, Ruth Fielding at Cameron Hall, he praised
her stating that it was “quite good--better than the first
one” but added that it was too short and requested more
material.28 Despite this, it is clear that Stratemeyer had
a good overall opinion of her writing ability. When
offering a new series to Barse & Hopkins, the unpub-
lished “Rose Ella” series, he stated that he had “in mind
one of our younger writers.”29
Stratemeyer offered several new series ideas, including
a “Stella Strong”30 series to Barse & Co. and later to
Grosset & Dunlap,31 and a “Nellie Fay” series to Grosset
& Dunlap.32 In examining the proposals for these se-
ries, it is clear that there are some elements which made
their way to the Nancy Drew series but these series
were not primarily intended to be mysteries. When pro-
posing the “Stella Strong” series to Grosset & Dunlap,
one suggested title was “The Secret of the Twin Tow-
ers.”33 One primary consideration in his negotiations
with Alexander Grosset was that the new series feature
a sole heroine rather than an ensemble.34
The character named “Nancy Drew” and the pseudonym
“Carolyn Keene” was selected by October 1, 1929 when
Stratemeyer sent in the proposal for this series. The
first outline was sent to Mildred Wirt two days later.35
A popular legend surrounding the Nancy Drew series
the
is present for the Nancy Drew series and Wirt was not
asked to rewrite the story nor was there any indication
that she would not write the next volume were it not for
the intervention of the publisher, Grosset & Dunlap.
By May 6, 1930, Stratemeyer’s assistant, Harriet Otis
Smith, wrote to one of the Syndicate’s publishers to
declare that Stratemeyer was very ill. He died on May
10. Smith wrote the full outline for the fourth Nancy
Drew volume based on Stratemeyer’s paragraph-length
title proposal which was approved by Grosset & Dunlap.
Smith sent the outline to Mildred Wirt on June 3. Smith’s
outline for the fifth volume was sent on July 7.
Meanwhile, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and her sister,
Edna Stratemeyer, were busy settling the accounts of
the estate of their father and considering who might buy
the company. There was doubt among the sisters and
Smith whether a young man named Wallace Palmer of
Independence, Missouri, could raise $2,000 to buy the
Syndicate.
Realizing that they could neither abandon their father’s
business nor sell it, they made arrangements to continue
it. They chose to move the offices nearer their home in
Newark, New Jersey. The sisters did not do any actual
writing until Edna wrote one of the Kay Tracey series
volumes in 1940. This series for Cupples & Leon was

 
indicated that Stratemeyer was “bitterly disappointed”
with Wirt’s treatment of the character in the first Nancy
Drew story.36 However, there is no indication of this in
the correspondence of the period. He acknowledged
receipt of the manuscript for The Secret of the Old Clock
on November 8 and sent an outline for the second vol-
ume on December 3. The outline for the third volume
was send on December 11. Although the correspon-
dence with authors from this period include many
criticisms of submitted manuscripts, no such complaint
begun same
year
 as the Dana Girls series for
This was possible because of the
rising sales for Nancy Drew and other series, despite
the Great Depression.
Stratemeyer’s literary legacy can be evaluated from sev-
eral aspects but perhaps none of the works he was
involved with over a span of nearly 55 years of amateur
and professional writing and editing was as significant,
in the long run, as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.
1Edward Stratemeyer to Editor magazine regarding advertisement 11Edward Stratemeyer to Harriet Otis Smith. 28 Apr 1914.


toemploy



new
 ghostwriters.

 26
 Mar


1926.

 12The Stratemeyer Syndicate offices had several addresses in New
. 20 Apr 1926. First ;BYork
4N;BOPCity
;B:#

at
around
 the same location:
!letter
"#$in
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'(%)(
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0in$'The
)%()Editor.
"
132"4 ;B42QR2S#J1B2O G#TAve,
U1 V4 G#12th
Floor,
XWY2Q Rooms 1204 & 1205
Apr 1926. ;B422R2S#Z1B2O G#%1 V';B[G# 0W;.Q Apr 1920]
Stratemeyer’s reply, describing the series for which he wants ;B42S\[N;BS6O G Aug 1922]
author.
5 
6

75
 
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91:

*;.42<'1=>   Ave. (at 24th St.) [21 Jan 1925, 1 Feb 1925, 28
May 1925, 4 Mar 1929]
let5you
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hand

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? 
@

Fearless
 
"yarn.”
1A;B2
C;.42<'1@D8
E 13Mention letters from Harriet Otis Smith to Syndicate and their
garding ch. 1-3 of the Dave Fearless: “you have done pretty
Fgood
G
-Hwork”

JI8 J?

'5

-KK
JL$J LM
ficient sales. A
letter [17 Mar 1926] from the publisher indicated that the print
runs of the books were: Movie boys, Dave Fearless, Nat Rid-
ley 12,000 copies; Frank Allen 14,000 copies.
2Sales prospectus for the Stratemeyer Syndicate prepared in 1930
and royalty statements from the Stratemeyer Syndicate
Records Collection held by New York Public Library as ana-
lyzed by Frank Kreiger and shared with this author.
replies.
14Volumes 14, 16, 17.
15Cupples & Leon, 1911. Another title, The Disappearance of
John Darr, was advertised in the original edition of The Man-
sion of Mystery but apparently not published. It is unclear if
this was going to be a new story or another rewrite from one of
the Old Cap Collier stories that Stratemeyer wrote and con-
trolled.
16Edward Stratemeyer to Cupples & Leon. 21 Jan 1911.
=]FG
ZI8 6
^_D8

17These stories were published in Detective Story as serials:
=]FG
Z`L
ZM'a ?]Towers,”
3Stratemeyer wrote the stories in Nick Carter Library issues 40,

] 7 parts (22 Oct - 3 Dec 1921)
41, 43, 46, 67, 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 85, 99, 112, 160, 166, 172,
195, 197, 198, 205, 207, 211 along with other dime novels in
Street & Smith’s Log Cabin Library and New York Five Cent
Library under numerous house pseudonyms.
4Most of the other stories in the Old Cap Collier Library were
purchased by Golden Hours magazine.
5Walther, Peter C. Newsboy __:6 (Nov-Dec 1987).
6Copyright Transfers, volume 27, page 509. United States Copy-
right Office, Washington, D.C.
7Johnson, Deidre. “Early and Miscellaneous Writings by Edward
Stratemeyer.” DNRU 552 (Aug. 1988), p. 60-62.
8 Ayers Brinser corresponded numerous times with Edward
Stratemeyer’s daughters. Copies of these letters are held in the
Stratemeyer Syndicate Rectords Collection at New York Pub-
lic Library. The letters from the Syndicate to Brinser are dated
25 Nov 1933, 19 Jan 1934, 26 Feb 1934, 6 Apr 1934 and Brinser
to the Syndicate dated 15 Nov 1933.
9The Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection at New York Pub-
lic Library is an unparalleled resource which was donated by
Simon & Schuster who acquired the materials along with the
purchase of the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1984. Initially the
materials were inventoried and then stored in a Bristol, Penn-
sylvania warehouse for a decade. Perhaps it was not a mere
coincidence that the materials were donated less than a year
after a question about scholarly access to the materials was raised
at the 1993 Nancy Drew Conference at the University of Iowa.
The donation was followed by a period of waiting until funding
 

could be arranged to pay for the cataloging and preservation of
the materials. This funding was generously provided by Chubb
Insurance and the materials became available to scholars in the
Fall of 1998. While the collection is far from complete, it rep-
resents the largest group of materials available about the
Stratemeyer Syndicate and the process of uncovering its many
secrets will keep us busy for many years to come.
10Garis, Roger C. My Father Was Uncle Wiggily (McGraw-Hill,
1966). p. 148-153. Stratemeyer wrote to Roger Garis [24 Jun
1926] and stated that he preferred having writers “close by”
and went on to mention that he had a writer in New Orleans
[J.F. Carter] and one in far Ontario [McFarlane]. Stratemeyer
had occasion to complain about Garis’ use of gambling in an X-
Bar-X Boys story [29 Jul 1926].
KK

?Vcb 5 parts (4 Aug - 1 Sep 1923)
=]FG
ZH
_D8 #
,” 6 parts (22 Jul - 26 Aug 1922)
18Two manuscripts of this story may be found at the University of
Oregon at Eugene in special collections related to the
Stratemeyer Syndicate and at New York Public Library in the
Stratemeyer Syndicate Records Collection.
19On 15 Mar 1927 Stratemeyer wrote that he wanted “Mystery
Ranch” to be a “strong up-to-date yarn for men and women--
not boys.” He added on 23 March, “owing to criticisms being
made on Sinclair Lewis’s ‘Elmer Gentry,’ I wish you to empha-
size the fact that the pretended minister in ‘Mystery Ranch’ is
an imposter.”
20Edward Stratemeyer to Leslie McFarlane. 7 Jan 1927.
21Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 3 May 1927.
22Edward Stratemeyer to Leslie McFarlane. 17 May 1927.
23Edward Stratemeyer to Leslie McFarlane. 16 Jun 1927.
24Edward Stratemeyer to Leslie McFarlane. 10 Apr 1928.
25Edward Stratemeyer to Leslie McFarlane. 25 Mar 1929.
26Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Augustine. 8 Jun 1927.
27Edward Stratemeyer to Mrs. A.A. Wirt. 19 May 1928.
28Edward Stratemeyer to Mildred Augustine. 26 Jul 1927.
29Edward Stratemeyer to Barse & Hopkins. 28 Jun 1927.
30Edward Stratemeyer to Barse & Co. 1 Apr 1929.
31Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 30 Sep 1929.
32Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 19 Jul 1929.
33Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 30 Sep 1929.
34Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 30 Aug 1929.
5# 


'#
35Edward Stratemeyer to Grosset & Dunlap. 1 Oct 1929.
Wirt. 3 Oct 1929.
36This appears in a few sources but the most detailed is derived
from an interview with Mildred Wirt Benson by Linnea Martin,
“The Ghost in the Attic,” Hiram Magazine, Summer 1988.