Tell Me True
It’s Tell Me True Tuesday!
A reader wants to know, “How many books did Carolyn Keene write? And is it true that she also wrote the Hardy Boys books under a different name?”
I’ll answer the second question first. No, Carolyn Keene did not author the Hardy Boys books. I’ll post about those in the future.
The reason that I can say that emphatically is because (and hold onto your hats, you Nancy Drew idealists) Carolyn Keene isn’t a real person. And she’s not just a pseudonym for one person. She is a pseudonym for many people.
About a hundred years ago, Edward Stratemeyer had the idea to create a series of children’s books that offered a more “adult” feel in terms of mystery and adventure. His first such series was the Rover Boys, which was an immediate hit. He followed with the Bobbsey Twins in 1904.
Even though Stratemeyer was an author, he couldn’t keep up with the appetite for new children’s adventure books. He began hiring ghost writers to write the stories for him. The first Hardy Boys stories appeared in 1927 and the first Nancy Drew stories appeared in 1930. As Carolyn Keene, Mildred Wirt Benson penned the skeleton versions of 23 of the first 25 Nancy Drew books. She was paid a flat fee of $125-$250 for each story and was, as all of the ghost writers, obligated to remain anonymous.
At Edward Stratemeyer’s death, his will provided that all Syndicate ghostwriters, including Benson, were sent one fifth of the equivalent of the royalties the Syndicate had received for each book series to which they had contributed.
Stratemeyer’s daughters took over following his death. Daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams revised most of the original 34 books Nancy Drew books. The last of the hardback series, The Thirteenth Pearl (56), was published in 1979, three years before Harriet’s death.
As for Mildred Wirt Benson? Her identity became public during a nasty lawsuit which pitted the Stratemeyer Syndicate against Simon & Schuster. She admitted to writing many of the books. She died in 2002.
Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene, Edward Stratemeyer, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Mildred Wirt Benson
May 1st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
This brief post is mostly accurate but there are a few points I wish to clarify. The bequest in Stratemeyer’s will concerned the amount the ghostwriters had been paid for their work over the previous five years, not the royalties of the sales of the books.
The motivation for creating the Rover Boys was not to create a more “adult” feel as you describe. Rather it was to shift away from the largely British themes and authors which were still fairly dominant in boys’ stories. Edward also stated that he tried to avoid that which was “namby pamby” or overtly moralistic in the stories. They were clean stories but he felt that any morals should be felt rather than stated outright.
Additional volumes in the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, etc., series were published by Simon & Schuster after 1979 and before the Stratemeyer Syndicate was sold to that publishing firm in 1984. Harriet S. Adams wrote most of the Nancy Drews during a certain period of time but others on the staff took over a year or two before her death in 1982.
The revisions of the first 34 Nancy Drew books basically took 210+ page books of 25 chapters and shortened them to 180 pages and 20 chapters. The easiest way to distinguish an “original text” from a “revised text” book is to look at the number of chapters. Some of the stories were simply cut down to size and others were completely rewritten. My favorite example of a rewrite is Moss-Covered Mansion which goes from a story about stolen heirlooms to one of stolen missile parts at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
This description is not quite clear on the roles of the Syndicate and the ghostwriters in producing these popular series. The Syndicate came up with the series idea and persuaded a publisher to take it. They next produced outlines and casts of characters for the ghostwriters to follow. When the ghost turned in the manuscript, the Syndicate edited it before it was handed over to the publisher. The Syndicate, especially during Edward’s lifetime, was intimately involved with nearly all details of production and promotion of the books, including typesetting, illustration, advertising copy on the books and jackets, and even promotional campaigns to make sure boys and girls were aware of the books during the holiday shopping season at the end of the year.
The amount paid to the ghosts sounds small today but it was actually a pretty good sum of money–about equivalent to two months’ wages as a newspaper reporter, the most common “day job” for the ghosts. This writing was done in their spare time and most books were written in 3-6 weeks of this spare time.
The ghosts were also paid as soon as the manuscript was accepted (occasionally there was editing required). If a writer sold a book outright to a publisher, they would not get paid until the book was actually published in most cases. If they were able to secure a royalty arrangement, they would only get paid after the books had sold. Many publishers had royalty statements issued twice a year so the author could wait 6-9 months for payment on their writing. Edward Stratemeyer paid promptly for work, even for stories which were ultimately not published.
The outlines for the first Nancy Drew books were very detailed and include all of the elements which we see in those 1930 books, including descriptions of Nancy and her father, the town of River Heights located in the “Middle West”, and even her blue roadster.
The role of the ghostwriters is an important one but the Syndicate, who took the risks and reaped the rewards, is also important. Both should receive credit for their roles in creating these fascinating books.
James Keeline