|
Mildred Benson
Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (July 10, 1905 – May 28, 2002) was an American journalist and writer of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, Carolyn Keene, from 1929 to 1947 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, which were bestsellers. Early life Mildred Benson was born Mildred Augustine on July 10, 1905, in Ladora, Iowa, to Lillian and Dr. J. L. Augustine. Benson earned her degree in English from the University of Iowa in 1925 in just three years. She later returned to the university, and in 1927, became the first student there to earn a master's degree in journalism. Writing career Benson began her career selling short stories to magazines such as ''St. Nicholas'' and ''Lutheran Young Folks''. During her college years, she worked at ''The Daily Iowan'' under editor George Gallup, and after receiving her undergraduat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mildred Wirt Benson
Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (July 10, 1905 – May 28, 2002) was an American journalist and writer of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, Carolyn Keene, from 1929 to 1947 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, which were bestsellers. Personal life Mildred Benson was born Mildred Augustine in Ladora, Iowa, to Lillian and Dr. J. L. Augustine. Benson earned her degree in English from the University of Iowa in 1925 in just three years. She later returned to the University and in 1927, became the first student there to earn a master's degree in journalism. In 1928, she married Asa Wirt, who worked for the Associated Press. The couple had a daughter together, Peggy Wirt, who was born in 1936. After Asa Wirt's death in 1947, she married George A. Benson, (in 1950) editor of the ''Toledo Blade'' newspaper of Toledo, Ohio. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)
''The Blade'', also known as the ''Toledo Blade'', is a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio published daily online and printed Thursday and Sunday by Block Communications. The newspaper was first published on December 19, 1835. Overview The first issue of what was then the ''Toledo Blade'' was printed on December 19, 1835. It has been published daily since 1848 and is the oldest continuously run business in Toledo. David Ross Locke gained national fame for the paper during the Civil War era by writing under the pen name Petroleum V. Nasby. Under this name, he wrote satires ranging on topics from slavery, to the Civil War, to temperance. President Abraham Lincoln was fond of the Nasby satires and sometimes quoted them. In 1867 Locke bought the ''Toledo Blade''. The paper dropped "Toledo" from its masthead in 1960. In 2004 ''The Blade'' won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with a series of stories entitled "Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths". The story brought to light the stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of ''New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were very popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. 165. . At the time, Simon was a piano salesman and Schuster was editor of an automotive trade magazine. They pooled , equivalent to $ today, to start a company that published crossword puzzles. The new publishing house used "fad" publishing to publish bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie McFarlane
Charles Leslie McFarlane (October 25, 1902 – September 6, 1977) was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker, who is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful ''Hardy Boys'' series, using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. Biography Early life The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario. He became a freelance writer shortly after high school. He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario, in 1936. This period is described in his 1975 book ''A Kid in Haileybury''. Journalist As a young man he worked in Sudbury, Ontario, as a newspaper reporter, then for a weekly paper in Toronto, before taking a job at the ''Springfield Republican'' newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Stratemeyer Syndicate While in the U.S., he replied to a want ad placed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, publisher of such titles as ''Nancy Drew'', ''Tom Swift'' and the ''Bobbsey Twins''. As a result, he fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hardy Boys
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of book-packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books themselves were written by several ghostwriters, most notably Leslie McFarlane, under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. The Hardy Boys have evolved since their debut in 1927. From 1959 to 1973, the first 38 books were extensively revised, largely to remove depictions of racial stereotypes; they were also targeted towards younger readers by being rewritten in a simpler, action-oriented style to compete with television. A new ''Hardy Boys'' series, the ''Hardy Boys Casefiles'', was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original "Hardy Boys Mystery St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dana Girls
The Dana Girls was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, are teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while at boarding school. The series was created in 1934 in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys series, but was less successful than either. The series was written by a number of ghostwriters and, despite going out-of-print twice, lasted from 1934 to 1979; the books have also been translated into a number of other languages. While subject to less critical attention than either Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, a number of critics have written about the series, most arguing that the Dana Girls' relative lack of success was due to the more dated nature of the series. Characters The series' principal characters are Louise and Jean Dana, teenage orphans who solve mysteries while attending the fictional Starhurst School for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kay Tracey
The Kay Tracey Mysteries were published under the name Frances K. Judd, a house pseudonym of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager. The series was conceived as a response to the popularity of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and likewise features a teenage girl detective. While the original entries in the series lasted only from 1934 to 1942, the books were updated, revised, and have been re-issued numerous times, most recently by Bantam Books in the 1980s, and have been translated into Swedish and French. Many critics see Kay Tracey as markedly inferior to Nancy Drew, but some find the series to be significant as one of a number of series that provided girls with a feminist role model prior to third-wave feminism. Character Kay Tracey is a 16-year-old amateur sleuth who lives with her mother and her older cousin Bill, a lawyer, in the fictional town of Brantwood. Kay is depicted as unfailingly intelligent and courageous; she lives in "a constant shower of praise." Unlike Nancy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harriet Adams
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (December 12, 1892 – March 27, 1982) was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many books in the Nancy Drew series, using characters invented by her father, Edward Stratemeyer. Adams also oversaw other ghostwriters who wrote for these and many other series as a part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and rewrote many of the novels to update them starting in the late 1950s. Stratemeyer Syndicate With her sister, Edna, Adams took over control of the Stratemeyer Syndicate after her father Edward Stratemeyer's death in 1930. Edna ran the daily business operations, while Adams dealt with publishers and wrote; Edna became inactive when she married in 1942, and Adams took over the business. Adams is credited with keeping the Syndicate afloat through the Great Depression, and with revising the two most popular series, Nancy Drew and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mystery At Lilac Inn
''The Mystery At Lilac Inn'' is the fourth volume in the ''Nancy Drew Mystery Stories'' series. It was first published in 1930 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Mildred Wirt Benson was the ghostwriter for the 1930 edition. In 1961, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams extensively revised the novel, creating a completely different story. The original omitted the lead characters from much of the action, the titular inn was only a place where a crime was committed with minor investigatory follow-up, and a domestic help sub-plot was out-of-place in 1961. Ethnic slurs and opinions were removed. Plot summaries & controversy 1930 edition The story involves Nancy Drew helping her friend Emily Crandall find out who stole her heirloom jewels. Emily's guardian, Mrs. Jane Willoughby, unwisely removes them from a safe deposit box and carries them with her while lunching at Lilac Inn, only to have her handbag stolen while the diners are distracted by a car crash. In the meantime, Nancy must hire a tem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Fielding
The Ruth Fielding books were an early Stratemeyer Syndicate series, published between 1913 and 1934 under the pseudonym Alice B. Emerson. Ruth Fielding begins the series as an orphan who comes to live with her miserly uncle and, in later titles, goes from boarding school to college and on into adulthood. Unusually for a main character in a Stratemeyer Syndicate series, Ruth Fielding marries. Ghostwriters Edward Stratemeyer Edward L. Stratemeyer (; October 4, 1862 – May 10, 1930) was an American publisher, writer of children's fiction, and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He was one of the most prolific writers in the world, producing in excess of 1,300 ... created the series and wrote plot outlines, but the books themselves were written by a number of ghostwriters. Three authors wrote the series under the pseudonym of Alice B. Emerson: W. Bert Foster wrote titles 1 through 19; Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward wrote titles 20 through 22; and Mildred A. Wirt Benson wrot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
