THE BIBLIOMANIAC'S MANTRA

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including  Nancy Drew ,  the Hardy Boys , the various  Tom Swift  series, the Bobbsey Twins, the  Rover Boys , and others. They published and contracted the many pseudonymous authors doing the writing of the series from 1899 through 1987, when the syndicate partners sold the company to Mega-Books.

"How many do you have now?" Said Robert.

"Four thousand two hundred and seventy three" said Sherwood.

"Wow." said Robert. "All children's series books?"

"All Stratemeyer books and all published before World War II. You have to set some boundaries as a book collector."

"I had no idea he published that many titles," said Robert.

"I'd read it was several hundred, but four thousand?"

"They're not all unique titles," said Sherwood. "I started out trying to find one copy of each title, then upgraded to getting each title in a dust jacket, then each in a first edition, and then I started in on later printings, changes in the dust jacket designs and so on. It's a funny thing about book collecting - no matter how tightly you define your collection, it keeps expanding."

Lovett, Charlie - Escaping Dreamland, Blackstone Publishing, Ashland, OR 2020 Kindle Edition, Chapter XVII (57% in) Kindle Edition is $8.69

Escaping Dreamland just came out Sept. 22, 2020. It is a lovely whimsical novel about the world of publishing children's mysteries just before WWI and one writer's journey of research and discovery into one legendary series. The novel is about what happened in Manhattan children's book publishing between 1895 and 1915 and another writer's 2010 quest into that world to find answers to his own contemporary writing issues. For a bibliophile New Yorker it was especially great fun. Most of the libraries were old friends. All wrapped up in an intelligent dust jacket of publishing scholarship.

The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon was a staple of my youth. I had no idea it was written by umpteen different writers. Just like a TV series.

For more information, see:
Escaping Dreamland (https://charlielovett.com/books/escaping-dreamland/)

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