A professional author is generally considered prolific if they publish, say, 20 or more books. They’re generally considered popular if they sell, say, 2 or 3 million. But Edward Stratemeyer, who was born October 4, 1862, did just a little bit better than that. He published over 1300 books that sold over 500 million copies. He’s the most prolific author in history. But you probably haven’t heard of him because all the books he wrote were published under other names.
As you’ve probably surmised already, Stratemeyer didn’t write every word of every book himself, but he did write a lot of them, and came up with the ideas and plots for the others. And he didn’t even get started until he was 26. Here’s the story, as he might have told it.
A boy was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1862, who grew up reading the stories from Horatio Alger and William Adams. He loved their rags-to-riches books, and began telling his own stories. His father ran a tobacco shop, and little Eddie set up a small printing press in the basement, where he printed his tales in flyers and pamphlets. He distributed them to friends and family, who didn’t encourage him as much as they might have — he felt a bit unappreciated, and after high school just went to work in his father’s store.
He kept practicing writing in his spare time, though, and sometimes showed his stories to his friends. Once again, they were noncommittal. Eddie didn’t complain or quit; he knew from his favorite books that the most important thing was persistence. He was finally rewarded when he was 26, when the Golden Days magazine bought his story Victor Horton’s Idea. Even his family was impressed when he showed them his check — $76! In those days the average weekly wage was only around $10.
Two years later he moved to Newark, New Jersey and opened a paper store — and kept writing. He began selling his stories to various publishers, including newspapers, publishers of “dime novels,” and magazines. He published his stories under a variety of pen names. He worked his way up to publishing a full-length book, Richard Dare’s Venture, in 1894. It was in the style of Horatio Alger; a rags to riches story of a boy. And he met his hero, Horatio Alger! Alger had read Richard Dare’s Venture, but was in poor health and asked Edward to finish one of his manuscripts. Alger passed away the next year. That was the same year Edward wrote and published his first best-seller, The Rover Boys. That was the first book in a long series, and all of them sold well. Years later, in 1930, the New York Times reported that the Rover Boys series had sold over 5 million copies.
Edward then had two successful series of books: the Rover Boys and the Bound to Success series, anchored by his first book. He kept turning them out, but had even more ideas. Being diligent and organized, he always made notes about his ideas in order to get back to them later. Then one day, tired from overwork, he had his next BIG idea, and formed the Stratemeyer Syndicate. It was a publishing company, but unique — he made the notes for books, hired ghost writers to fill in the details, and published them under more pen names. He retained ownership of the copyrights.
Edward Stratemeyer’s syndicate achieved successes beyond his expectations! He personally created the series The Bobbsey Twins, Bomba the Jungle Boy, The Colonial Series, Dave Dashaway, Don Sturdy, The Hardy Boys, Jack Ranger, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Bound to Success, and of course his personal favorite, Rover Boys. He remained a humble, mild man who never sought the public eye or published anything under his own name, but many years after he died he appeared as a character in a television series: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
