People ‘behind’ Hardy boys and Nancy Drew

A ghostwriter is a writer who authors books officially credited to another person.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was created by Edward Stratemeyer who saw immense potential in the children's book genre. Instead of giving the child moral instruction, he decided that children should be entertained first. He believed they would imbibevirtues through interesting reading material. Edward Stratemeyer knew that a series of short stories could make a huge profit. The first series that was ever published was The Rover Boys under the pseudonym Arthur M. Winfield. It was a resounding success almost selling a whopping 30 volumes (between 1899 and 1926). He did write other series under his own name but discovered that the ones written under the pseudonym he used, sold better. Later on, he couldn’t juggle multiple series so decided to employ ghost writers. Some of them were: Howard Garis, Leslie McFarlene, Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig.

Introducing the concept of Ghost Writers

The interesting thing about the Stratemeyer Syndicate was that they later specialised in mystery series for children. Edward Stratemeyer wrote The Mansion of Mystery and published five more books in that series. Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were his other huge successes. In 1930, Stratemeyer died and left the Syndicate to his two daughters (Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer). During this time more series were published and Harriet even started revising the old Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew's to bring them up to date. The primary publisher for the Syndicate was Grosset & Dunlap. When Harriet decided that it was time for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series to go paperback, Grosset & Dunlap sued. This was where the world first heard about the Syndicate because all the ghost writers were contractually obligated not to let their authorship be known. Grosset & Dunlap got the rights to the series but the subsequent volumes could be published elsewhere by the Syndicate. Thus the subsequent volumes were published by Simon and Schuster. They later on purchased the Syndicate (after the death of Harriet) and turned it into Mega-books. In a sense the Syndicate was the inception of ghost writing. The idea that Edward Stratemeyer created was interesting. He made sure that the ghost writers would not talk about their work outside because he wanted to create an illusion that it was written by one person. It worked very well because it has given us such pleasurable reads like The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. At the end of the day these books have touched a number of lives and continue to do so. They are necessary, especially now. Kids need to enjoy these books to realise that adventure awaits them out there. All they have to do is reach out and grasp it.