March 30, 2025 • 36 mins
The Paperback Warrior sets their investigate eye on the mysteriously named publishing phenom simply referred to as "The Stratemeyer Syndicate". Will courage and curiosity overcome the Warrior when he faces danger and peril reviewing the haunted happenings of "The Secret of Terror Castle"? Also in this exciting edition is an investigation of mysterious events happening on the moon and a madman stalking a Texas football game. Listen to this retro-themed episode today!
Be sure to follow all of Paperback Warrior's adventures on YouTube HERE and the blog HERE.
Be sure to follow all of Paperback Warrior's adventures on YouTube HERE and the blog HERE.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Good morning, afternoon, evening, whatever time it is, in whatever
month or year it is. I'm your host, Eric. As
you probably know by now, this is a podcast that
ties into Paperbackwarrior dot com, where you'll find reviews of
vintage fiction, a few contemporary books, graphic novels, magazines, reprints,
and columns about books and authors. The blog also hosts
(00:40):
the archives of the prior one hundred and sixteen episodes
of this very show, and links to buy books through
affiliates like Amazon and ape Books. Be sure to follow
Paperback arwyor on Facebook, x threads, and Instagram, and of
course our YouTube channel, which is always updated weekly. There's
even a lot of Paperback Warrior content on Pinterest anyone
still uses that, as well as episodes of the show
(01:03):
streaming for you now on archive dot org. Just search
for the show by name and you'll find the last
twenty episodes or so, plus a dozen or more videos.
So you're probably thinking today's episode has an unusual title,
and you're right. I had no idea who were what
this was up until a few weeks ago. No, I
haven't gone true crime. This isn't an episode about a
mobster of mafia cell or anything like that. The Stratameyer Synding.
(01:27):
It was a massive publishing venture, I guess you could
call it. Founded by Edward Stratameyer in nineteen oh five,
Stratameyer was responsible for creating one hundred and twenty five
series titles consisting of one thousand, six hundred books that
sold more than two hundred million copies in more than
two dozen languages. Today, I'm telling you all about Edward Stratmeier,
(01:50):
his book packaging company, and the lasting dynasty that he's
left behind. I'm also going to be reviewing a juvenile
fiction book that loosely ties into our feature today. The
name of the book is Alfred Hitchcock in The Three
Investigators Number one, The Secret of Terror Castle. But first
I want to tell you about a few science fiction
(02:11):
books that I just got. The first is The Taking
of Satcon Station by Jim Bain and Barney Cohen. Now
Cohen's real name is Bernard Houseband Cohen. This book, again
called The Taking of sat CON's Station, was published in
nineteen eighty two by Tour And the cover art of
(02:33):
my paperback is by Howard Chaikin, and it's just amazing
in my opinion. The back of the book says strange
happenings in space. The book apparently stars a hero named
Asher Backhorn, a field agent for a company called MMP,
which essentially is just a large space carrier company. So
I'm kind of thinking he's sort of like the old
(02:55):
railroad Dix of the Pulps. The time frame is the
early twenty eighties, right around the corner right. Part of
his job is hunting down contract runaways, and he's called
to sat Constation to look for a woman named Lauren
Potter whose boss claims she just ran off. So Backcorn
is ultimately a space detective. Now. I ended up getting
a second book that looked really awesome as well, called
(03:17):
Blood on the Moon, which is written by Cohen. This
is a nineteen eighty four tour book, and I don't
know who did the artwork on it. But in checking
this one out, I realized that it's actually a sequel
to the Taking of sat Gonstation. Backcorn is in this
book as well, and this one, Backcorn is on the
Moon trying to discover who killed and mutilated a group
(03:38):
of people. There's ties to something called a Lunar Mormon Society,
a left wing conspiracy and computer crimes. I'm curious about
both of these books. They look great. Has anyone read them? Now?
Oddly enough, I also ended up getting another Cohen authored
book called Colisseum. This is a Dell paperback from nineteen
seventy five and the cover has the sniper at a
(04:01):
football game being played in a domed stadium. The back
of the book says, the domed stadium in Texas was
one of the world's wonders, and now it was scheduled
to give a full display of its awesome capabilities. First,
a hugely popular religious cult leader would appear. Next was
the turn of a rock superstar. Then the climax would
(04:22):
come with a pro football game, sure to pack the
stadium with one hundred and twelve thousand fans. The first
trouble sign was the inexplicable breakdown of the air conditioning system.
Then a guard discovered the empty cartridge cases. Next, the
bullet ridden targets were found in the seemingly meaningless notes.
If there had been time, the pieces might have been
put together. But the people are already in their seats.
(04:43):
The action on the field had begun, and the clock
started taking on a monstrous game of life and death
that end, any moment could explode into a slaughter colisseum.
This book looks really interesting. Anyone read this one? I'm curious.
The last look I wanted to tell you about is
a nineteen eighty four ACE paperback titled The Takeover. The
(05:05):
authors are G. C. Edmondson and C. M. Cotelan kot
L A. N. The cover art is by Greg Feakson,
and I was thumbing through it and glanced at the
first page, which just teases a scene in the book
as a type of preview. You know how that goes.
But get this. Here's how it reads. President James Quincy
Cannon said, quote, I hereby declare war on the Soviet
(05:30):
Union and all powers abiding and abetting their invasion of
the United States. Washington is in the hands of the enemy,
but the Presidency will not give in to repression in blackmail.
The Presidency exists for the American people. End quote. The
President put the muzzle of the weapon in his mouth
since it was on full automatic. A large part of
his head disappeared before his thumb could stop pulling the trigger. Man,
(05:53):
that's crazy. The back of the book suggests that the
Soviets nuke the capital of a Caribbean Republic, which sets
off some sort of global warfare in Admiral and his
fleet of Trident subs are apparently the last hope for
the free world. I love post apocalyptic paperback, so this
seems right up my alley, or should I say right
up my damnation alley? See what I did there, it's
(06:13):
kind of neat all right. How about we mosey on
over to today's feature, which is going to be entertaining an
informative I promise you let me hit the tune and
just go prance around. As I mentioned in my opener,
today's feature is about Edward Stratabayer and his book packaging company.
(06:36):
The Stratamyer Syneica, began in nineteen oh five, and by
nineteen twenty six, the group managed to dominate the entire
juvenile fiction serial market with iconic characters like the Hardy Boys,
Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. I'm going to delve into
Stratamyer's life, his humble beginnings, and the massive amount of
titles he created. So let's go be a kid again
(06:58):
and jump into these young adult mystery and adventure titles.
Starting with the year eighteen sixty two, the year Edward
was born in his childhood home in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Edward began consuming dime novels. His passion for literature prompted
him to create a small press, and by the age
of fourteen, he has published his first story in one
issue magazines titled Our Friend and then later The Young American.
(07:22):
After high school, Edward printed an eight page publication titled
Our American Boys. Edward's first big break was on November two,
eighteen eighty nine. The story he wrote, Victor Horton's Idea,
was published in the children's magazine Golden Days for Boys
and Girls, earning him a fat check in the amount
of seventy five dollars. Now that was a decent amount
(07:44):
of money for eighteen eighty nine. After writing a variety
of stories, some using pseudonyms like Edward, Fred Frisky, Robert Rollick,
and Roy Rockwood, Edward eventually became hired by the biggest
pulp publisher, the legendary Street and Smith. Edward went to
work on the Nick Carter mystery magazines, writing twenty two issues.
He also wrote for rival publishing companies. He used a
(08:07):
handful of pen names like Edward Strayer through the end
of the nineteenth century, Edward had stories published at Argasy,
New York Weekly, Banner Weekly, and Chicago Ledger. In eighteen
ninety eight, one of Edward's literary heroes, Horatio Alger, contracted
him about finishing a manuscript. Edward took the job, and
a year later, after Alger died, he worked on and
(08:30):
completed eleven of the man's manuscripts or unfinished volumes. Edward
did the same thing for another dying author, a gentleman
named William t. Adams. Edward finished a Civil War series
titled Blue and Gray on Land that was published in
eighteen ninety nine. Sensing a shift in the publishing market,
Edward began to study the overall demographics and statistics of
(08:51):
book buying in the early twentieth century. He realized that
hardcover products cloth stone binding, could be more respected and
compared to thin paper dime novels. The country had changed,
creating a better childhood for many Americans. Instead of working
at factories or in the fields, many children could now
attend school. Plus, the rise of the middle class allowed
(09:13):
more financial flexibility to afford children's books. Edward bought back
some of his dime novel stories that he wrote for
publishers like Street and Smith. He edited these stories and
had them published in hardcover format. Thus Edward's first ventures
as a book packager was created. In eighteen ninety four,
edwards Argacy story was repackaged into hardcover as Richard Dare's
(09:33):
Venture and was published by Merriam. In eighteen ninety seven,
a publisher named W. L. Allison published twelve of Edward's
titles under his own name or the names Captain Ralph
Bonehill or Arthur Winfield. It's important to realize early on
that Edward nor his Straatemeier Syndicate was a book publisher.
Book packaging was the game creating ideas for books, writing
(09:57):
outlines for characters and titles, even writing some of the
stories or books. It's the equivalent of let's say a
screenwriter shopping for a producer to bring the creativity to
the screen. Same thing here. Let's say you have an
idea for a book series starring Let's say I don't
know a supernatural sleuth who travels the countryside solving mysteries,
(10:20):
but you don't necessarily want to write a bunch of novels.
Takes too much time and you don't want to put
in the effort. You want to create the ideas and
the plots. So you come up with a concept, a
few characters, some fixtures that you want in every book,
a few rules, and maybe you even write the first
book or two, but have plots and ideas for a
bunch of other stories containing these characters. That's sort of
(10:41):
what Edward was planning. Let me explain how it started
for him. Around nineteen hundred, Edward wrote to the sister
of the aforementioned Horatio Alger and declared his purpose. He
stated he wanted to act as a literary agent. He
would purchase manuscripts from writers and then have them issued
in book format, as opposed to the cheap, thin paper
dime novels. But using these manuscripts, he would introduce more scenes, characters,
(11:05):
spruce up the story to fit whatever grand design he
had for the book. Then he passes that on to
a ghostwriter to create a standalone book. In doing so,
Edward could produce way more books than he could ever write.
The key to all of this is money, of course,
the new copyright laws at this time gave all of
the rights of these books to the owners of the title,
not the writers. This is important. One of Strateemyer's first
(11:29):
published serial titles in book format was The Rover Boys.
It was published between eighteen ninety nine and nineteen twenty six,
consisting of thirty titles. These were published by the Mershon Company,
then in nineteen oh seven by Cheddard and Peck, and
then later by Gross and Dunlap, a publisher We're going
to talk about a lot. Even into the nineteen thirties
(11:50):
and nineteen forties, the series was still being published in
reprint editions. The Rover Boys became one of the most
long running juvenile series and sold over five million copies.
The series, which starred three brothers named Tom, Sam and Dick,
experienced adventures and pranks at a military boarding school, and
the series would later appear or be referenced in movies, shows,
(12:12):
and books like The Andy Griffiths Show, I Spy, The
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Dark Shadows, and even was
used as the name for a Canadian rock group. In
nineteen oh four, Edwards struck literary gold with the creation
of the series The Bopsey Twins. Now everyone on the
planet even today has heard of this series. The series
began with the first book simply titled The Bopsey Twins
(12:35):
using the house name Laura Lee Hope. The book was
about a set of two fraternal sets of twins, Burton
Nan Her between eight to twelve years old, and Flossie
and Freddie, who are about four to six years old. Originally,
the series was about home life and travel, but by
the middle of the twentieth century the books became focused
on mysteries. Edward wrote the first book and then passed
(12:56):
his outlines, story ideas, and character designs to ghostwriters. The
end result was a series that ran from nineteen oh
four until nineteen seventy nine. That seventy one books written
by ghostwriters after the series debut, and then from eighty
seven through ninety two. There's another thirty books are so written.
In nineteen oh six, Edward pitched another series called The
(13:18):
Motor Boys. This series ran until nineteen twenty four, with
twenty two titles. All the books were written by Howard R.
Garis using the name Clarence Young, but most, if not all,
of these books worked off initial outlines created by Edward.
The interesting thing about The Motorboy's success was that Edward
convinced publishers to drop their book prices in half instead
(13:39):
of one dollar books, The Motor Boy's novels were sold
for fifty cents each. The idea was that sheer volume
would make more money for the publishers, and by nineteen
thirty four, it's estimated that major publishers had printed enough
fifty cent juvenile fiction books to build a monument seven
hundred miles high. That's an astronomical number of books. Edwards
(14:02):
soon set up a small office in New Jersey, kept
a small staff, and paid writers instead of any type
of royalties or advances. The titles increased to include Six
Little Bunkers, Honey Bunch, The Dana Girls, Bamba, The Jungle Boy,
Baseball Joe, Gary Grayson, Football, Radio Boys, Routh of the Railroad,
and a lot of other titles. The film production industry
(14:25):
inspired Edward to create four series titles, The Moving Picture Boys,
The Motion Picture Comrades, The Moving Picture Girls, and The
Motion Picture Chums. Edward's second runaway success outside of The
Bopsey Twins, was the original Tom Swift, a series of
adventures starring a courageous boy inventor. My dad used to
(14:46):
read Tom Swift books all the time when I was
growing up. He always had him laying around, and I
had no idea what these books were about. He was
reading Louis Lamore, Zane Gray, max Brand, and then there
were these weird Tom Swift books laying around. The first book,
Tom Swift in his Motorcycle, was published in nineteen ten.
The first thirty eight titles were published by Grossen and Dunlop.
(15:08):
Thirty five of these were written by Howard Garrison, the
last three by Harriet Adams. There were two more books
published as part of the Big Little Book series put
out by Western Publishing. These were authored by Thomas Moyst
and Mitchell. All of these Tom Swift books had the
author's name as Victor Appleton and were published between nineteen
ten and nineteen forty one. Tom Swift then returned again
(15:29):
to Grossenden Dunlin with new books referred to as Tom
Swift Junior. There were thirty three books total from nineteen
fifty four through seventy one, and were written by a
variety of authors. Of course, there was Tom Swift three,
which appeared from eighty one through eighty four, published by
Simon and Schuster, and I believe, yeah, there was a
(15:50):
Tom Swift four that was published between ninety one and
ninety three, consisting of thirteen books, and they were published
by Archway. I mean even more series titles appeared in
the two thous including Tom Swift Inventors Academy and Tom
Swift Young Inventor. And there's also a television show I believe,
and maybe even a movie. I'm not sure. But just
when you think Tom Swift's success would be the high
(16:13):
watermark for Edward, I mean this The Bopsey Twins on
Tom Swift huge, huge sellers, but his winning formula gets
a serious booster with two gigantic series titles right around
the corner. In nineteen twenty seven, the first Hardy Boys
book hit retail stores and libraries. It was called The
(16:33):
Tower Treasure and it was published by the series publisher
Grossed and Dunlop. The book kicks off a title like
nothing Edward had ever produced before. The Hardy Boys would
be printed through nineteen seventy nine, consisting of fifty eight
original books written by a revolving door of authors using
the Franklin W. Dixon name. Simon and Schuster began publishing
(16:54):
the books in seventy nine, picking up at book number
fifty nine. This publishing history lasted until nineteen eighty five
at book number eighty five. Then Megabooks came on board
as a book packager for Simon and Schuster and published
books eighty six through one hundred and fifty three the
time range of nineteen eighty seven through nineteen ninety eight.
Then Simon and Schuster took over completely from book one
(17:16):
hundred and fifty three through one hundred and seventy in
two thousand and one. Aladdin then took over in two
thousand and two, handling books one hundred and seventy one
through one hundred and ninety in two thousand and five.
There's also a Hardy Boys case File series that was
published in eighty seven and eighty eight, consisting of one
hundred and twenty seven books. Those books were my jam
(17:36):
I can remember. My dad would get off from the
from the plant. He was a welder at the plant,
and he got off around four on a Thursday, and
Thursday was our day to go uptown. So we went
out to dinner at this at this cafe, and then
we were going to Then we go to Kmart. And
(17:57):
if you don't know, if you any remember Kmart, it
was an old department store that's oide of business now.
But we would go to Kmart right after dinner and
my dad would give me five dollars and I would
use the five dollars to buy a Hardy Boy's Case
File book because it seems like they were like two
or three of those a month coming out. And what
was really cool to me as a as a young man.
(18:18):
I guess a teenager, this would have been eighty seven,
so I was like ten or eleven. But the Hardy
Boys Case Files books have almost like a Mac Bowlin cover,
like they're really cool, painted explosive covers with the Hardy
Boys in some kind of horrible, horrible situation, and they
just appealed to me. They were just colorful and they
looked violent even though they really weren't. But they just
(18:40):
appealed to me, and I read them like crazy. There
was also a young Hardy Boys series published between ninety
seven through two thousand and It was seventeen books under
the title The Clues Brothers. There was a slightly more
mature series that actually came out in two thousand and
five titled Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers, and it ran forty
books through twenty twelve. There's also a Hardy Boys Adventure
(19:01):
series with like twenty five books, Hardy Boys Secret Files
with nineteen books. There's also the Hardy Boy's Clue book
from twenty sixteen that lasted like seventeen books. Again, I
read a ton of early Hardy Boys books as well
as the Case File books. My parents would take me
to Toys r US maybe once a quarter with maybe
(19:23):
like birthday money or our allowances that I somehow saved
up for doing chores or just maybe a holiday money.
And instead of going right to the Nintendo games, because
I always wanted to do that, but instead of going
there first, I would always go to there's this little
section there at Toys r US at least in my town,
that had the Hardy Boys books in those glossy hardcover
(19:46):
editions that were basically just brand new, and I would buy.
I would buy those With whatever my money. I would
buy at least two or three Hardy Boys books, and
I think I think I had the first one, which
was like an ace double looked over, so the first
book was on one side and the second book was
on the other. And then whatever money I had left over,
which wasn't very much, I would put towards like a
(20:08):
Nintendo game or do a layaway, because they did lay
away there. But anyway, I'm digressing, but I read a
ton of these books. The covers for the books again,
were all really cool, even the old ones. The whole
series consists of Frank and Joe Hardy living in this
fictional town and solving crimes. Throughout most of the early series,
both boys are in high school and their father is
(20:29):
a police detective. As the series went on, the two
brothers end up joining a crime fighting organization in the
aforementioned Undercover Brother series. Listen, some of these titles need
their own feature, so I'm not going to go too
far into this. I'm going to leave the Hardy Boys
right here because at some point they deserve a feature,
along with probably even the Bopsy Twins. But I'm not
going to tackle that. But Tom Swift probably needs one
(20:51):
as well. So now, up until this point in our
Edward story here, he's been working hard. He's been creating
series titles, he's writing entire novel ideas, outlines plots. He's
basically a one person show, requiring a small office of personnel.
But by nineteen thirty, Edward is sixty seven years of age,
he begins having heart attacks and the third one gets
(21:12):
him in May of that year. Edward is buried in
Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey, which ironically is also
where Stephen Crane is buried. So the question is what
happens next to this legendary book packaging company known as
the Stratamier Syndicate. Well, it keeps going thanks to Edward's daughters,
Harriet and Edna now both take over the synd again,
(21:35):
but it's really Harriet that takes control. Harriet who is
now married with four kids and is Harriet Edwards at
this point. Edna would later move to Florida, leaving Harriet
in charge in New Jersey. So under Harriet's watch, the
series that Edward created the year of his death, Nancy Drew,
grows into a market sensation that parallels even the Hardy
(21:56):
Boys' success. The Nancy Drew series that Edward had began,
but really Harriet and a handful of others really kind
of stepped in and propelled this into the market. The
original Nancy Drew series was published from nineteen thirty until
two thousand and three, with one hundred and seventy five
novels plus thirty four revised stories. These were all published
under the house name Carolyn Keene. Mildred Benson wrote twenty
(22:20):
three of the first thirty novels in the series. But
there's a bit of controversy here because Harriet in nineteen
fifty nine she went back and rewrote early installments in
the series. These weren't just edits. She would change out
like the entire plots, but she kept the same book title.
It's really weird now. I get revising these older books
to remove racial stereotypes and language, but removing entire plots
(22:44):
or rewriting the books in general just seems silly to me.
She also did this to the Hardy Boys books as well,
and even the word counts in some of these books
would decrease by as much as twenty percent. I think
Hardy Boys fans called this the Great Purge. But regardless,
Nancy Drew was a market sensation, and there were more
series titles introduced after the original series. On two thousand
(23:06):
and four, the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series was launched.
Beginning in twenty thirteen, there was the Nancy Drew Diaries.
There's also the Nancy Drew Files, and of course there's
the inevitable collaboration of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys
in their own series title, which ran about thirty six
books from nineteen eighty nine through nineteen ninety eight. And
I won't go too much further here with the history
(23:27):
because again Nancy Drew needs her own feature here at
Paperback Warrior. And these titles, all of them are rich
with benefits of having long publishing histories, so there's a
lot to digest. But I've always been interested in Nancy
Drew just because I read The Hardy Boys so much.
I wanted to know where to start reading these as
a newbie. I absolutely love a Facebook page titled Jennifer's
(23:51):
Series Books. A juvenile fiction fan named Jennifer White post
there often, and she sells directly as well. I asked
her what the high water mark of the Namesancy Drew
book series was. She set The original text versions of
one through thirty four are considered the best of the series.
Within that group of thirty four, the first twenty two
are generally the better books. Really strong titles are number three,
(24:14):
The Bungalow Mystery, Number six, Redgate Farm, number nine, The
Sign of the Twisted Candles, Number ten the Password to
Larkspur Lane, and number twenty two The Clue in the
Crumbling Wall. Of the revised editions that Harriet rewrote, the
favorites are number four, The Mystery at Lilac Inn and
number five The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Now let me
(24:36):
also say this, Jennifer's juvenile fiction blog is something similar
to Paperback Warrior, only juvenile fiction and young adult stuff.
I absolutely go down a rabbit hole when I read
her well written reviews on titles like Rick Brandt, Judy Bolton,
Brad Forrest, or Tom Swift, for example. I'm also providing
a little warning to fans and readers to this show.
(24:57):
I may occasionally incorporate more juvenile fiction in to my
reading in the future, because I seem to really enjoy
this stuff no matter your age. A good adventure and
mystery is timeless in my opinion, and I already reads
stuff like Doc Savage anyway, and that's juvenile fiction in
my opinion. But back to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Harriet would
operate her father's book packaging company for another fifty years.
(25:20):
She managed to thrive during America's Great depression. During the
Christmas season of nineteen thirty three, Macy's alone sold six
thousand Nancy Drew books and by the way, the Hardy
Boys book The Tower Treasure sells more than one hundred
thousand copies a year to this day. But Harriet had
some help along the way. She hired Andrew Svinson, a
(25:40):
writer and journalism instructor, to write new titles and books.
He wrote the very popular title The Happy Hollisters. That
series ran from nineteen fifty three through nineteen seventy with
thirty three volumes. Savincent also began the Bret King Mysteries,
and in nineteen sixty one he became a partner to
the syndicate, the first non family member to hold a
leadership role. He later died in nineteen seventy five. Now
(26:05):
early in Edward's publishing mission, he secured a contract from
Grossen and Dunlop that paid four percent of the book
prices on The Hardy Boys, and that same contract extended
to Nancy Drew. The book sold for fifty cents, so
Edward was getting two cents per book sold. In nineteen
sixty nine, Harriet communicated with Grossen and Dunlap that the
(26:25):
raid had never changed and that she wanted to renegotiate
the contracting price. Her request was met with silence. She
also pitched anniversary ideas to celebrate titles reaching milestones, like
The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew, and they were also
met with silence. So Harriet took it upon herself to
switch publishers. She switched the syndicate over to Simon and
(26:47):
Schuster for a better contract now. Obviously, Grossen and Dunlap
were furious over the decision, and they promptly sued her
for three hundred million dollars for punitive damages, copyright infringement,
and for breach of contract. In nineteen eighty the court
ruled to allow Harriet to continue on with Simon and Schuster,
and that Grossen and Dunlop could continue printing and selling
(27:08):
hardcover editions of previously published books. In nineteen eighty two,
Harriet passed away at the age of eighty nine, ending
the book packaging legacy. The creation of the book packaging
concept and technique surely could be credited to Edward Stratmeier.
He employed editors, copywriters, stenographers, and co writers. In terms
(27:29):
of comparison, The closest thing to Edward Stratemeyer in the
world of men's action adventure would be Lyle Kenyon Ingle.
He did the exact same thing as Edward, only with
men's action adventure titles. Instead of The Hardy Boys and
Nancy Drew, it was titles like The Butcher and Richard Blade.
Ingle used the blueprint and success story of the Stratamyer
(27:50):
Syndicate to create his paperback empire, and the real highlight
of Ingle's empire was Nick Carter Killmaster, the very hero
that Edward Stratemeyer had wrote about way back in the
late eighteen hundreds, so they kind of cross paths in
a way. I wanted to touch on a couple of
series titles that are credited to the Stratemeyer Syndicate that
(28:12):
might appeal to fans of men's action adventure in general.
The first is Christopher cool Teen Agent. This series was
published between nineteen sixty seven and nineteen sixty nine and
featured six books authored under the house name of Jack Lancer.
There's some argument on who actually wrote the series. Some
say Jim Lawrence, others say Robert Calder. The series is
(28:33):
about Christopher Coole, an agent that works for a special
branch of the CIA that features the best students from
leading colleges and universities. The covers are awesome and are
similar to something you would find in the action adventure
paperback market of the nineteen sixties. Another series you might
like is the Slim Tyler series. There were six of
these books published between nineteen thirty and nineteen thirty two.
(28:56):
Tyler is an adventurer who gets into aviation adventures and
nautical action. I didn't get a chance to check on
the author though that one. Now. Another aviation action series
is the Ted Scott Flying Stories. These were published between
nineteen twenty four and nineteen forty three and credited to
the house name of Franklin W. Dixon. Yeah, that guy,
the same one that's on the Hardy Boys books. The
(29:16):
author was really John W. Duffield. The same author also
wrote a Tarzan knockoff series that looks interesting called Bamba
the Jungle Boy. These were published between nineteen twenty six
and nineteen thirty eight and even spun off into film, television,
show and comics. All Right, so I'm finishing up my
feature on the Stratimier Syndicate. My reference mainly was the
(29:38):
awesome book The Hardy Boys Mysteries nineteen twenty seven to
nineteen seventy nine, a cultural and literary history by Mark Connolly.
This book is incredible. I highly recommend getting it. I
also use the website stratimire dot org and the fiction
magazine Index. All right, now that we have that out
of the way, I want to tell you a little
(29:59):
something about me personally before I jump into this episode's review. No,
I'm not dying. I'm not ending the show or the blog,
but I am needing your help. As many of you know,
I'm an insurance agent, have been for seventeen years. I
was employed with Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield during that time,
and my specialty is Medicare advantage plans and prescription drug plans.
Last October I left Anthem to go at it on
(30:22):
my own. My goal was to change industries, but I
realized I really love Medicare plans and I love my customers.
So I'm on my own now and I'm an independent agent,
and I'm starting over building my book of business. And
I'll tell you it's tough leaving the corporate support of
a Fortune one hundred company, but I wanted more flexibility
in my personal life, and I also need time throughout
(30:43):
the week to work on Paperback Warrior stuff. So this
leads me to my little invite for all my listeners.
If you have Medicare, or if you're even within a
year of Medicare, please contact me again. I've got seventeen
years of experience and I don't play into this medicare
scam stuff. There's average artisements out there on every commercial
break telling you the newest Medicare scam. I'm not one
(31:05):
of those guys. I want honesty and Medicare, and I
plead with you. If you are anyone you know needs
help figure out their Medicare plan, call me. My number
is eight six six two one one seven four four
three extension three six four one. Of course, you can
also I am me on the Paperback Warrior Facebook or
(31:26):
send me a direct message through x. I don't do
Instagram that much, but you can message me there. The
best thing is just to call my office number again
eight six six two one one seven four four three
extension three six four one, and just leave me a
voicemail on my office. I don't do business in every state,
but I've got about thirty or so states that I
(31:47):
do all right. So the last order of business now
is today's review. Now, this review isn't a Stratumier syndicate
book or production, but it does tie into the themes
of juvenile fiction. The book is called called Alfred Hitchcock
and the Three Investigators The Secret of Terror Castle. This
is the debut in the Three Investigator's original series that
(32:08):
was published between nineteen sixty four and nineteen eighty four,
consisting of forty three total books. The author's name on
the cover is Robert Arthur Junior, a real guy who
graduated from William and Mary and the University of Michigan.
He contributed to pulp titles like Thrilling Detective and The
Phantom Detective. He also wrote screenplays in Hollywood Now. Author
(32:29):
wrote books one through nine and number eleven before other
writers came on, like Dennis Lynz, Ken Platt and Mark Brandle.
There are also series titles published later that featured these characters.
In this series debut, The Secret of Terror Castle, three
boys living in a fictional coastal California town called Rocky
Beach have won a contest that allows them the use
of a Rolls Royce and a chauffeur named Worthington. The
(32:52):
kids come up with an idea that they will be
investigators and design business cards and a special color coded
question mark symbol to use in their investigations. The kids
consist of Jupiter Jones, who's the first investigator. He's a
former child actor and he's spunky. Then Pete Crenshaw, the
second investigator, who's the athlete and the action guy. And
(33:13):
Bob Andrews, whose records in research and the librarian and
of course he's nerdy. The terror Castle is first introduced
as a way for the kids to obtain and solve
their first case. Jupiter leads the trio to Alfred Hitchcock's
studio office to pitch an investigation. They want to discover
a real haunted house that the director can use for
his next motion picture. Hitchcock isn't amused with a kid's
(33:36):
idea and he quickly dismisses them, but before he scoots
them out, he agrees that he will introduce their mystery
and resolution if they can find a haunted house, which
they kind of do in a Scooby Doo sort of way.
This sets up an early theme where the end of
each book features a brief introduction into the next mystery,
which will be unveiled in the next series installment. The
(33:58):
Secret of Tara Castle is this Cliff's Side mansion once
owned and inhabited by a horror actor named Stephen Terrell.
He died under mysterious circumstances and his car, it sort
of like, plunged from this rocky highway and his body
was never found amongst the carnage of the wreck. Since
his death, the mansion is apparently haunted by a mislike
(34:19):
appearance they call fog of Fear and this music playing
apparition that's deemed Blue Phantom. As the kids dig into
Terrell's disappearance, they're attacked by a gang inside the mansion
placed in a basement dungeon, and they fall victim to
a tunnel collapse. But along the way they also interview
Terrell's suspicious assistant and befriend, of course, their chauffeur, Worthington.
(34:42):
By nineteen sixty four, these types of juvenile stories had
already ran through a marketing blitz and market saturation in
a way thanks to the guy we just talked about,
Edward Stratemeyer. The formula here is the same as other
juvenile fiction titles hinting is something supernatural, but then explaining
the resolution to the mystery and more earthly scientific ways.
I'm sure by having the Hitchcock name attached to the
(35:04):
series certainly made publishing waves for Random House and led
to commercial success. Eventually, Hitchcock's name is removed from the
title and it's just called The Three Investigators. Overall, I
really enjoyed Arthur's writing style and his emphasis on the
trio's work ethic, their characterization, and the interaction with the
various participants in the mystery. All three kids have their
(35:25):
own skill set and personality that really enhances the overall
title in individual stories. If you love a good mystery,
no matter what your age is, then the Secret of
Terror Castle is worth a stay. I really enjoyed the
series debut and look forward to reading more. And that's
a wrap on this paperback warrior mystery. We solved the
(35:45):
riddle of Terror Castle and the definition and meaning of
the oddly titled episode, the Stratameier Syndicate. I'll be back
here again in about two weeks with another podcast episode.
Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, follow me on Facebook, acts, threads,
and Instagram, remember being your personalized for Medicare options, and
most importantly, enjoy whatever it is you're doing. Take care
(36:07):
and I'll see you next time.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, whatever time it is, in whatever
month or year it is. I'm your host, Eric. As
you probably know by now, this is a podcast that
ties into Paperbackwarrior dot com, where you'll find reviews of
vintage fiction, a few contemporary books, graphic novels, magazines, reprints,
and columns about books and authors. The blog also hosts
(00:40):
the archives of the prior one hundred and sixteen episodes
of this very show, and links to buy books through
affiliates like Amazon and ape Books. Be sure to follow
Paperback arwyor on Facebook, x threads, and Instagram, and of
course our YouTube channel, which is always updated weekly. There's
even a lot of Paperback Warrior content on Pinterest anyone
still uses that, as well as episodes of the show
(01:03):
streaming for you now on archive dot org. Just search
for the show by name and you'll find the last
twenty episodes or so, plus a dozen or more videos.
So you're probably thinking today's episode has an unusual title,
and you're right. I had no idea who were what
this was up until a few weeks ago. No, I
haven't gone true crime. This isn't an episode about a
mobster of mafia cell or anything like that. The Stratameyer Synding.
(01:27):
It was a massive publishing venture, I guess you could
call it. Founded by Edward Stratameyer in nineteen oh five,
Stratameyer was responsible for creating one hundred and twenty five
series titles consisting of one thousand, six hundred books that
sold more than two hundred million copies in more than
two dozen languages. Today, I'm telling you all about Edward Stratmeier,
(01:50):
his book packaging company, and the lasting dynasty that he's
left behind. I'm also going to be reviewing a juvenile
fiction book that loosely ties into our feature today. The
name of the book is Alfred Hitchcock in The Three
Investigators Number one, The Secret of Terror Castle. But first
I want to tell you about a few science fiction
(02:11):
books that I just got. The first is The Taking
of Satcon Station by Jim Bain and Barney Cohen. Now
Cohen's real name is Bernard Houseband Cohen. This book, again
called The Taking of sat CON's Station, was published in
nineteen eighty two by Tour And the cover art of
(02:33):
my paperback is by Howard Chaikin, and it's just amazing
in my opinion. The back of the book says strange
happenings in space. The book apparently stars a hero named
Asher Backhorn, a field agent for a company called MMP,
which essentially is just a large space carrier company. So
I'm kind of thinking he's sort of like the old
(02:55):
railroad Dix of the Pulps. The time frame is the
early twenty eighties, right around the corner right. Part of
his job is hunting down contract runaways, and he's called
to sat Constation to look for a woman named Lauren
Potter whose boss claims she just ran off. So Backcorn
is ultimately a space detective. Now. I ended up getting
a second book that looked really awesome as well, called
(03:17):
Blood on the Moon, which is written by Cohen. This
is a nineteen eighty four tour book, and I don't
know who did the artwork on it. But in checking
this one out, I realized that it's actually a sequel
to the Taking of sat Gonstation. Backcorn is in this
book as well, and this one, Backcorn is on the
Moon trying to discover who killed and mutilated a group
(03:38):
of people. There's ties to something called a Lunar Mormon Society,
a left wing conspiracy and computer crimes. I'm curious about
both of these books. They look great. Has anyone read them? Now?
Oddly enough, I also ended up getting another Cohen authored
book called Colisseum. This is a Dell paperback from nineteen
seventy five and the cover has the sniper at a
(04:01):
football game being played in a domed stadium. The back
of the book says, the domed stadium in Texas was
one of the world's wonders, and now it was scheduled
to give a full display of its awesome capabilities. First,
a hugely popular religious cult leader would appear. Next was
the turn of a rock superstar. Then the climax would
(04:22):
come with a pro football game, sure to pack the
stadium with one hundred and twelve thousand fans. The first
trouble sign was the inexplicable breakdown of the air conditioning system.
Then a guard discovered the empty cartridge cases. Next, the
bullet ridden targets were found in the seemingly meaningless notes.
If there had been time, the pieces might have been
put together. But the people are already in their seats.
(04:43):
The action on the field had begun, and the clock
started taking on a monstrous game of life and death
that end, any moment could explode into a slaughter colisseum.
This book looks really interesting. Anyone read this one? I'm curious.
The last look I wanted to tell you about is
a nineteen eighty four ACE paperback titled The Takeover. The
(05:05):
authors are G. C. Edmondson and C. M. Cotelan kot
L A. N. The cover art is by Greg Feakson,
and I was thumbing through it and glanced at the
first page, which just teases a scene in the book
as a type of preview. You know how that goes.
But get this. Here's how it reads. President James Quincy
Cannon said, quote, I hereby declare war on the Soviet
(05:30):
Union and all powers abiding and abetting their invasion of
the United States. Washington is in the hands of the enemy,
but the Presidency will not give in to repression in blackmail.
The Presidency exists for the American people. End quote. The
President put the muzzle of the weapon in his mouth
since it was on full automatic. A large part of
his head disappeared before his thumb could stop pulling the trigger. Man,
(05:53):
that's crazy. The back of the book suggests that the
Soviets nuke the capital of a Caribbean Republic, which sets
off some sort of global warfare in Admiral and his
fleet of Trident subs are apparently the last hope for
the free world. I love post apocalyptic paperback, so this
seems right up my alley, or should I say right
up my damnation alley? See what I did there, it's
(06:13):
kind of neat all right. How about we mosey on
over to today's feature, which is going to be entertaining an
informative I promise you let me hit the tune and
just go prance around. As I mentioned in my opener,
today's feature is about Edward Stratabayer and his book packaging company.
(06:36):
The Stratamyer Syneica, began in nineteen oh five, and by
nineteen twenty six, the group managed to dominate the entire
juvenile fiction serial market with iconic characters like the Hardy Boys,
Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. I'm going to delve into
Stratamyer's life, his humble beginnings, and the massive amount of
titles he created. So let's go be a kid again
(06:58):
and jump into these young adult mystery and adventure titles.
Starting with the year eighteen sixty two, the year Edward
was born in his childhood home in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Edward began consuming dime novels. His passion for literature prompted
him to create a small press, and by the age
of fourteen, he has published his first story in one
issue magazines titled Our Friend and then later The Young American.
(07:22):
After high school, Edward printed an eight page publication titled
Our American Boys. Edward's first big break was on November two,
eighteen eighty nine. The story he wrote, Victor Horton's Idea,
was published in the children's magazine Golden Days for Boys
and Girls, earning him a fat check in the amount
of seventy five dollars. Now that was a decent amount
(07:44):
of money for eighteen eighty nine. After writing a variety
of stories, some using pseudonyms like Edward, Fred Frisky, Robert Rollick,
and Roy Rockwood, Edward eventually became hired by the biggest
pulp publisher, the legendary Street and Smith. Edward went to
work on the Nick Carter mystery magazines, writing twenty two issues.
He also wrote for rival publishing companies. He used a
(08:07):
handful of pen names like Edward Strayer through the end
of the nineteenth century, Edward had stories published at Argasy,
New York Weekly, Banner Weekly, and Chicago Ledger. In eighteen
ninety eight, one of Edward's literary heroes, Horatio Alger, contracted
him about finishing a manuscript. Edward took the job, and
a year later, after Alger died, he worked on and
(08:30):
completed eleven of the man's manuscripts or unfinished volumes. Edward
did the same thing for another dying author, a gentleman
named William t. Adams. Edward finished a Civil War series
titled Blue and Gray on Land that was published in
eighteen ninety nine. Sensing a shift in the publishing market,
Edward began to study the overall demographics and statistics of
(08:51):
book buying in the early twentieth century. He realized that
hardcover products cloth stone binding, could be more respected and
compared to thin paper dime novels. The country had changed,
creating a better childhood for many Americans. Instead of working
at factories or in the fields, many children could now
attend school. Plus, the rise of the middle class allowed
(09:13):
more financial flexibility to afford children's books. Edward bought back
some of his dime novel stories that he wrote for
publishers like Street and Smith. He edited these stories and
had them published in hardcover format. Thus Edward's first ventures
as a book packager was created. In eighteen ninety four,
edwards Argacy story was repackaged into hardcover as Richard Dare's
(09:33):
Venture and was published by Merriam. In eighteen ninety seven,
a publisher named W. L. Allison published twelve of Edward's
titles under his own name or the names Captain Ralph
Bonehill or Arthur Winfield. It's important to realize early on
that Edward nor his Straatemeier Syndicate was a book publisher.
Book packaging was the game creating ideas for books, writing
(09:57):
outlines for characters and titles, even writing some of the
stories or books. It's the equivalent of let's say a
screenwriter shopping for a producer to bring the creativity to
the screen. Same thing here. Let's say you have an
idea for a book series starring Let's say I don't
know a supernatural sleuth who travels the countryside solving mysteries,
(10:20):
but you don't necessarily want to write a bunch of novels.
Takes too much time and you don't want to put
in the effort. You want to create the ideas and
the plots. So you come up with a concept, a
few characters, some fixtures that you want in every book,
a few rules, and maybe you even write the first
book or two, but have plots and ideas for a
bunch of other stories containing these characters. That's sort of
(10:41):
what Edward was planning. Let me explain how it started
for him. Around nineteen hundred, Edward wrote to the sister
of the aforementioned Horatio Alger and declared his purpose. He
stated he wanted to act as a literary agent. He
would purchase manuscripts from writers and then have them issued
in book format, as opposed to the cheap, thin paper
dime novels. But using these manuscripts, he would introduce more scenes, characters,
(11:05):
spruce up the story to fit whatever grand design he
had for the book. Then he passes that on to
a ghostwriter to create a standalone book. In doing so,
Edward could produce way more books than he could ever write.
The key to all of this is money, of course,
the new copyright laws at this time gave all of
the rights of these books to the owners of the title,
not the writers. This is important. One of Strateemyer's first
(11:29):
published serial titles in book format was The Rover Boys.
It was published between eighteen ninety nine and nineteen twenty six,
consisting of thirty titles. These were published by the Mershon Company,
then in nineteen oh seven by Cheddard and Peck, and
then later by Gross and Dunlap, a publisher We're going
to talk about a lot. Even into the nineteen thirties
(11:50):
and nineteen forties, the series was still being published in
reprint editions. The Rover Boys became one of the most
long running juvenile series and sold over five million copies.
The series, which starred three brothers named Tom, Sam and Dick,
experienced adventures and pranks at a military boarding school, and
the series would later appear or be referenced in movies, shows,
(12:12):
and books like The Andy Griffiths Show, I Spy, The
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Dark Shadows, and even was
used as the name for a Canadian rock group. In
nineteen oh four, Edwards struck literary gold with the creation
of the series The Bopsey Twins. Now everyone on the
planet even today has heard of this series. The series
began with the first book simply titled The Bopsey Twins
(12:35):
using the house name Laura Lee Hope. The book was
about a set of two fraternal sets of twins, Burton
Nan Her between eight to twelve years old, and Flossie
and Freddie, who are about four to six years old. Originally,
the series was about home life and travel, but by
the middle of the twentieth century the books became focused
on mysteries. Edward wrote the first book and then passed
(12:56):
his outlines, story ideas, and character designs to ghostwriters. The
end result was a series that ran from nineteen oh
four until nineteen seventy nine. That seventy one books written
by ghostwriters after the series debut, and then from eighty
seven through ninety two. There's another thirty books are so written.
In nineteen oh six, Edward pitched another series called The
(13:18):
Motor Boys. This series ran until nineteen twenty four, with
twenty two titles. All the books were written by Howard R.
Garis using the name Clarence Young, but most, if not all,
of these books worked off initial outlines created by Edward.
The interesting thing about The Motorboy's success was that Edward
convinced publishers to drop their book prices in half instead
(13:39):
of one dollar books, The Motor Boy's novels were sold
for fifty cents each. The idea was that sheer volume
would make more money for the publishers, and by nineteen
thirty four, it's estimated that major publishers had printed enough
fifty cent juvenile fiction books to build a monument seven
hundred miles high. That's an astronomical number of books. Edwards
(14:02):
soon set up a small office in New Jersey, kept
a small staff, and paid writers instead of any type
of royalties or advances. The titles increased to include Six
Little Bunkers, Honey Bunch, The Dana Girls, Bamba, The Jungle Boy,
Baseball Joe, Gary Grayson, Football, Radio Boys, Routh of the Railroad,
and a lot of other titles. The film production industry
(14:25):
inspired Edward to create four series titles, The Moving Picture Boys,
The Motion Picture Comrades, The Moving Picture Girls, and The
Motion Picture Chums. Edward's second runaway success outside of The
Bopsey Twins, was the original Tom Swift, a series of
adventures starring a courageous boy inventor. My dad used to
(14:46):
read Tom Swift books all the time when I was
growing up. He always had him laying around, and I
had no idea what these books were about. He was
reading Louis Lamore, Zane Gray, max Brand, and then there
were these weird Tom Swift books laying around. The first book,
Tom Swift in his Motorcycle, was published in nineteen ten.
The first thirty eight titles were published by Grossen and Dunlop.
(15:08):
Thirty five of these were written by Howard Garrison, the
last three by Harriet Adams. There were two more books
published as part of the Big Little Book series put
out by Western Publishing. These were authored by Thomas Moyst
and Mitchell. All of these Tom Swift books had the
author's name as Victor Appleton and were published between nineteen
ten and nineteen forty one. Tom Swift then returned again
(15:29):
to Grossenden Dunlin with new books referred to as Tom
Swift Junior. There were thirty three books total from nineteen
fifty four through seventy one, and were written by a
variety of authors. Of course, there was Tom Swift three,
which appeared from eighty one through eighty four, published by
Simon and Schuster, and I believe, yeah, there was a
(15:50):
Tom Swift four that was published between ninety one and
ninety three, consisting of thirteen books, and they were published
by Archway. I mean even more series titles appeared in
the two thous including Tom Swift Inventors Academy and Tom
Swift Young Inventor. And there's also a television show I believe,
and maybe even a movie. I'm not sure. But just
when you think Tom Swift's success would be the high
(16:13):
watermark for Edward, I mean this The Bopsey Twins on
Tom Swift huge, huge sellers, but his winning formula gets
a serious booster with two gigantic series titles right around
the corner. In nineteen twenty seven, the first Hardy Boys
book hit retail stores and libraries. It was called The
(16:33):
Tower Treasure and it was published by the series publisher
Grossed and Dunlop. The book kicks off a title like
nothing Edward had ever produced before. The Hardy Boys would
be printed through nineteen seventy nine, consisting of fifty eight
original books written by a revolving door of authors using
the Franklin W. Dixon name. Simon and Schuster began publishing
(16:54):
the books in seventy nine, picking up at book number
fifty nine. This publishing history lasted until nineteen eighty five
at book number eighty five. Then Megabooks came on board
as a book packager for Simon and Schuster and published
books eighty six through one hundred and fifty three the
time range of nineteen eighty seven through nineteen ninety eight.
Then Simon and Schuster took over completely from book one
(17:16):
hundred and fifty three through one hundred and seventy in
two thousand and one. Aladdin then took over in two
thousand and two, handling books one hundred and seventy one
through one hundred and ninety in two thousand and five.
There's also a Hardy Boys case File series that was
published in eighty seven and eighty eight, consisting of one
hundred and twenty seven books. Those books were my jam
(17:36):
I can remember. My dad would get off from the
from the plant. He was a welder at the plant,
and he got off around four on a Thursday, and
Thursday was our day to go uptown. So we went
out to dinner at this at this cafe, and then
we were going to Then we go to Kmart. And
(17:57):
if you don't know, if you any remember Kmart, it
was an old department store that's oide of business now.
But we would go to Kmart right after dinner and
my dad would give me five dollars and I would
use the five dollars to buy a Hardy Boy's Case
File book because it seems like they were like two
or three of those a month coming out. And what
was really cool to me as a as a young man.
(18:18):
I guess a teenager, this would have been eighty seven,
so I was like ten or eleven. But the Hardy
Boys Case Files books have almost like a Mac Bowlin cover,
like they're really cool, painted explosive covers with the Hardy
Boys in some kind of horrible, horrible situation, and they
just appealed to me. They were just colorful and they
looked violent even though they really weren't. But they just
(18:40):
appealed to me, and I read them like crazy. There
was also a young Hardy Boys series published between ninety
seven through two thousand and It was seventeen books under
the title The Clues Brothers. There was a slightly more
mature series that actually came out in two thousand and
five titled Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers, and it ran forty
books through twenty twelve. There's also a Hardy Boys Adventure
(19:01):
series with like twenty five books, Hardy Boys Secret Files
with nineteen books. There's also the Hardy Boy's Clue book
from twenty sixteen that lasted like seventeen books. Again, I
read a ton of early Hardy Boys books as well
as the Case File books. My parents would take me
to Toys r US maybe once a quarter with maybe
(19:23):
like birthday money or our allowances that I somehow saved
up for doing chores or just maybe a holiday money.
And instead of going right to the Nintendo games, because
I always wanted to do that, but instead of going
there first, I would always go to there's this little
section there at Toys r US at least in my town,
that had the Hardy Boys books in those glossy hardcover
(19:46):
editions that were basically just brand new, and I would buy.
I would buy those With whatever my money. I would
buy at least two or three Hardy Boys books, and
I think I think I had the first one, which
was like an ace double looked over, so the first
book was on one side and the second book was
on the other. And then whatever money I had left over,
which wasn't very much, I would put towards like a
(20:08):
Nintendo game or do a layaway, because they did lay
away there. But anyway, I'm digressing, but I read a
ton of these books. The covers for the books again,
were all really cool, even the old ones. The whole
series consists of Frank and Joe Hardy living in this
fictional town and solving crimes. Throughout most of the early series,
both boys are in high school and their father is
(20:29):
a police detective. As the series went on, the two
brothers end up joining a crime fighting organization in the
aforementioned Undercover Brother series. Listen, some of these titles need
their own feature, so I'm not going to go too
far into this. I'm going to leave the Hardy Boys
right here because at some point they deserve a feature,
along with probably even the Bopsy Twins. But I'm not
going to tackle that. But Tom Swift probably needs one
(20:51):
as well. So now, up until this point in our
Edward story here, he's been working hard. He's been creating
series titles, he's writing entire novel ideas, outlines plots. He's
basically a one person show, requiring a small office of personnel.
But by nineteen thirty, Edward is sixty seven years of age,
he begins having heart attacks and the third one gets
(21:12):
him in May of that year. Edward is buried in
Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey, which ironically is also
where Stephen Crane is buried. So the question is what
happens next to this legendary book packaging company known as
the Stratamier Syndicate. Well, it keeps going thanks to Edward's daughters,
Harriet and Edna now both take over the synd again,
(21:35):
but it's really Harriet that takes control. Harriet who is
now married with four kids and is Harriet Edwards at
this point. Edna would later move to Florida, leaving Harriet
in charge in New Jersey. So under Harriet's watch, the
series that Edward created the year of his death, Nancy Drew,
grows into a market sensation that parallels even the Hardy
(21:56):
Boys' success. The Nancy Drew series that Edward had began,
but really Harriet and a handful of others really kind
of stepped in and propelled this into the market. The
original Nancy Drew series was published from nineteen thirty until
two thousand and three, with one hundred and seventy five
novels plus thirty four revised stories. These were all published
under the house name Carolyn Keene. Mildred Benson wrote twenty
(22:20):
three of the first thirty novels in the series. But
there's a bit of controversy here because Harriet in nineteen
fifty nine she went back and rewrote early installments in
the series. These weren't just edits. She would change out
like the entire plots, but she kept the same book title.
It's really weird now. I get revising these older books
to remove racial stereotypes and language, but removing entire plots
(22:44):
or rewriting the books in general just seems silly to me.
She also did this to the Hardy Boys books as well,
and even the word counts in some of these books
would decrease by as much as twenty percent. I think
Hardy Boys fans called this the Great Purge. But regardless,
Nancy Drew was a market sensation, and there were more
series titles introduced after the original series. On two thousand
(23:06):
and four, the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series was launched.
Beginning in twenty thirteen, there was the Nancy Drew Diaries.
There's also the Nancy Drew Files, and of course there's
the inevitable collaboration of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys
in their own series title, which ran about thirty six
books from nineteen eighty nine through nineteen ninety eight. And
I won't go too much further here with the history
(23:27):
because again Nancy Drew needs her own feature here at
Paperback Warrior. And these titles, all of them are rich
with benefits of having long publishing histories, so there's a
lot to digest. But I've always been interested in Nancy
Drew just because I read The Hardy Boys so much.
I wanted to know where to start reading these as
a newbie. I absolutely love a Facebook page titled Jennifer's
(23:51):
Series Books. A juvenile fiction fan named Jennifer White post
there often, and she sells directly as well. I asked
her what the high water mark of the Namesancy Drew
book series was. She set The original text versions of
one through thirty four are considered the best of the series.
Within that group of thirty four, the first twenty two
are generally the better books. Really strong titles are number three,
(24:14):
The Bungalow Mystery, Number six, Redgate Farm, number nine, The
Sign of the Twisted Candles, Number ten the Password to
Larkspur Lane, and number twenty two The Clue in the
Crumbling Wall. Of the revised editions that Harriet rewrote, the
favorites are number four, The Mystery at Lilac Inn and
number five The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Now let me
(24:36):
also say this, Jennifer's juvenile fiction blog is something similar
to Paperback Warrior, only juvenile fiction and young adult stuff.
I absolutely go down a rabbit hole when I read
her well written reviews on titles like Rick Brandt, Judy Bolton,
Brad Forrest, or Tom Swift, for example. I'm also providing
a little warning to fans and readers to this show.
(24:57):
I may occasionally incorporate more juvenile fiction in to my
reading in the future, because I seem to really enjoy
this stuff no matter your age. A good adventure and
mystery is timeless in my opinion, and I already reads
stuff like Doc Savage anyway, and that's juvenile fiction in
my opinion. But back to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Harriet would
operate her father's book packaging company for another fifty years.
(25:20):
She managed to thrive during America's Great depression. During the
Christmas season of nineteen thirty three, Macy's alone sold six
thousand Nancy Drew books and by the way, the Hardy
Boys book The Tower Treasure sells more than one hundred
thousand copies a year to this day. But Harriet had
some help along the way. She hired Andrew Svinson, a
(25:40):
writer and journalism instructor, to write new titles and books.
He wrote the very popular title The Happy Hollisters. That
series ran from nineteen fifty three through nineteen seventy with
thirty three volumes. Savincent also began the Bret King Mysteries,
and in nineteen sixty one he became a partner to
the syndicate, the first non family member to hold a
leadership role. He later died in nineteen seventy five. Now
(26:05):
early in Edward's publishing mission, he secured a contract from
Grossen and Dunlop that paid four percent of the book
prices on The Hardy Boys, and that same contract extended
to Nancy Drew. The book sold for fifty cents, so
Edward was getting two cents per book sold. In nineteen
sixty nine, Harriet communicated with Grossen and Dunlap that the
(26:25):
raid had never changed and that she wanted to renegotiate
the contracting price. Her request was met with silence. She
also pitched anniversary ideas to celebrate titles reaching milestones, like
The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew, and they were also
met with silence. So Harriet took it upon herself to
switch publishers. She switched the syndicate over to Simon and
(26:47):
Schuster for a better contract now. Obviously, Grossen and Dunlap
were furious over the decision, and they promptly sued her
for three hundred million dollars for punitive damages, copyright infringement,
and for breach of contract. In nineteen eighty the court
ruled to allow Harriet to continue on with Simon and Schuster,
and that Grossen and Dunlop could continue printing and selling
(27:08):
hardcover editions of previously published books. In nineteen eighty two,
Harriet passed away at the age of eighty nine, ending
the book packaging legacy. The creation of the book packaging
concept and technique surely could be credited to Edward Stratmeier.
He employed editors, copywriters, stenographers, and co writers. In terms
(27:29):
of comparison, The closest thing to Edward Stratemeyer in the
world of men's action adventure would be Lyle Kenyon Ingle.
He did the exact same thing as Edward, only with
men's action adventure titles. Instead of The Hardy Boys and
Nancy Drew, it was titles like The Butcher and Richard Blade.
Ingle used the blueprint and success story of the Stratamyer
(27:50):
Syndicate to create his paperback empire, and the real highlight
of Ingle's empire was Nick Carter Killmaster, the very hero
that Edward Stratemeyer had wrote about way back in the
late eighteen hundreds, so they kind of cross paths in
a way. I wanted to touch on a couple of
series titles that are credited to the Stratemeyer Syndicate that
(28:12):
might appeal to fans of men's action adventure in general.
The first is Christopher cool Teen Agent. This series was
published between nineteen sixty seven and nineteen sixty nine and
featured six books authored under the house name of Jack Lancer.
There's some argument on who actually wrote the series. Some
say Jim Lawrence, others say Robert Calder. The series is
(28:33):
about Christopher Coole, an agent that works for a special
branch of the CIA that features the best students from
leading colleges and universities. The covers are awesome and are
similar to something you would find in the action adventure
paperback market of the nineteen sixties. Another series you might
like is the Slim Tyler series. There were six of
these books published between nineteen thirty and nineteen thirty two.
(28:56):
Tyler is an adventurer who gets into aviation adventures and
nautical action. I didn't get a chance to check on
the author though that one. Now. Another aviation action series
is the Ted Scott Flying Stories. These were published between
nineteen twenty four and nineteen forty three and credited to
the house name of Franklin W. Dixon. Yeah, that guy,
the same one that's on the Hardy Boys books. The
(29:16):
author was really John W. Duffield. The same author also
wrote a Tarzan knockoff series that looks interesting called Bamba
the Jungle Boy. These were published between nineteen twenty six
and nineteen thirty eight and even spun off into film, television,
show and comics. All Right, so I'm finishing up my
feature on the Stratimier Syndicate. My reference mainly was the
(29:38):
awesome book The Hardy Boys Mysteries nineteen twenty seven to
nineteen seventy nine, a cultural and literary history by Mark Connolly.
This book is incredible. I highly recommend getting it. I
also use the website stratimire dot org and the fiction
magazine Index. All right, now that we have that out
of the way, I want to tell you a little
(29:59):
something about me personally before I jump into this episode's review. No,
I'm not dying. I'm not ending the show or the blog,
but I am needing your help. As many of you know,
I'm an insurance agent, have been for seventeen years. I
was employed with Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield during that time,
and my specialty is Medicare advantage plans and prescription drug plans.
Last October I left Anthem to go at it on
(30:22):
my own. My goal was to change industries, but I
realized I really love Medicare plans and I love my customers.
So I'm on my own now and I'm an independent agent,
and I'm starting over building my book of business. And
I'll tell you it's tough leaving the corporate support of
a Fortune one hundred company, but I wanted more flexibility
in my personal life, and I also need time throughout
(30:43):
the week to work on Paperback Warrior stuff. So this
leads me to my little invite for all my listeners.
If you have Medicare, or if you're even within a
year of Medicare, please contact me again. I've got seventeen
years of experience and I don't play into this medicare
scam stuff. There's average artisements out there on every commercial
break telling you the newest Medicare scam. I'm not one
(31:05):
of those guys. I want honesty and Medicare, and I
plead with you. If you are anyone you know needs
help figure out their Medicare plan, call me. My number
is eight six six two one one seven four four
three extension three six four one. Of course, you can
also I am me on the Paperback Warrior Facebook or
(31:26):
send me a direct message through x. I don't do
Instagram that much, but you can message me there. The
best thing is just to call my office number again
eight six six two one one seven four four three
extension three six four one, and just leave me a
voicemail on my office. I don't do business in every state,
but I've got about thirty or so states that I
(31:47):
do all right. So the last order of business now
is today's review. Now, this review isn't a Stratumier syndicate
book or production, but it does tie into the themes
of juvenile fiction. The book is called called Alfred Hitchcock
and the Three Investigators The Secret of Terror Castle. This
is the debut in the Three Investigator's original series that
(32:08):
was published between nineteen sixty four and nineteen eighty four,
consisting of forty three total books. The author's name on
the cover is Robert Arthur Junior, a real guy who
graduated from William and Mary and the University of Michigan.
He contributed to pulp titles like Thrilling Detective and The
Phantom Detective. He also wrote screenplays in Hollywood Now. Author
(32:29):
wrote books one through nine and number eleven before other
writers came on, like Dennis Lynz, Ken Platt and Mark Brandle.
There are also series titles published later that featured these characters.
In this series debut, The Secret of Terror Castle, three
boys living in a fictional coastal California town called Rocky
Beach have won a contest that allows them the use
of a Rolls Royce and a chauffeur named Worthington. The
(32:52):
kids come up with an idea that they will be
investigators and design business cards and a special color coded
question mark symbol to use in their investigations. The kids
consist of Jupiter Jones, who's the first investigator. He's a
former child actor and he's spunky. Then Pete Crenshaw, the
second investigator, who's the athlete and the action guy. And
(33:13):
Bob Andrews, whose records in research and the librarian and
of course he's nerdy. The terror Castle is first introduced
as a way for the kids to obtain and solve
their first case. Jupiter leads the trio to Alfred Hitchcock's
studio office to pitch an investigation. They want to discover
a real haunted house that the director can use for
his next motion picture. Hitchcock isn't amused with a kid's
(33:36):
idea and he quickly dismisses them, but before he scoots
them out, he agrees that he will introduce their mystery
and resolution if they can find a haunted house, which
they kind of do in a Scooby Doo sort of way.
This sets up an early theme where the end of
each book features a brief introduction into the next mystery,
which will be unveiled in the next series installment. The
(33:58):
Secret of Tara Castle is this Cliff's Side mansion once
owned and inhabited by a horror actor named Stephen Terrell.
He died under mysterious circumstances and his car, it sort
of like, plunged from this rocky highway and his body
was never found amongst the carnage of the wreck. Since
his death, the mansion is apparently haunted by a mislike
(34:19):
appearance they call fog of Fear and this music playing
apparition that's deemed Blue Phantom. As the kids dig into
Terrell's disappearance, they're attacked by a gang inside the mansion
placed in a basement dungeon, and they fall victim to
a tunnel collapse. But along the way they also interview
Terrell's suspicious assistant and befriend, of course, their chauffeur, Worthington.
(34:42):
By nineteen sixty four, these types of juvenile stories had
already ran through a marketing blitz and market saturation in
a way thanks to the guy we just talked about,
Edward Stratemeyer. The formula here is the same as other
juvenile fiction titles hinting is something supernatural, but then explaining
the resolution to the mystery and more earthly scientific ways.
I'm sure by having the Hitchcock name attached to the
(35:04):
series certainly made publishing waves for Random House and led
to commercial success. Eventually, Hitchcock's name is removed from the
title and it's just called The Three Investigators. Overall, I
really enjoyed Arthur's writing style and his emphasis on the
trio's work ethic, their characterization, and the interaction with the
various participants in the mystery. All three kids have their
(35:25):
own skill set and personality that really enhances the overall
title in individual stories. If you love a good mystery,
no matter what your age is, then the Secret of
Terror Castle is worth a stay. I really enjoyed the
series debut and look forward to reading more. And that's
a wrap on this paperback warrior mystery. We solved the
(35:45):
riddle of Terror Castle and the definition and meaning of
the oddly titled episode, the Stratameier Syndicate. I'll be back
here again in about two weeks with another podcast episode.
Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, follow me on Facebook, acts, threads,
and Instagram, remember being your personalized for Medicare options, and
most importantly, enjoy whatever it is you're doing. Take care
(36:07):
and I'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!