RARA-AVIS: Re: Knee-jerk Name-Dropping

From: Kevin Burton Smith ( kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com)
Date: 07 Jun 2008


Karin wrote:

> Kevin, I hope you don't mean to imply that Nancy Drew and the
> Bobbsey Twins are in the same detective league.

Hmmm.... since they were aimed at very different age groups, that's not that surprising. But they both came out of the Stratemeyer League
(I mean "Syndicate"), so I wonder how much difference in quality there actually was.

I remember my six-year old self thinking THE DOODLEBUG MYSTERY was pretty exciting stuff.

> Perhaps you are thinking of the Dana Girls, rather than the Bobbsey
> Twins. ;)

Were the Dana Girls part of the Stratemeyer factory? If so, some of the same people may have written them. (I hope by now everyone knows Franklin W, Dixon, Carolyn Keene, Laura Lee hope et al didn't actually exist.)

Franklin W. Dixon, for example, noted for the Hardy's celebration of American smalltown values, was originally mostly Leslie MacFarlane, a Canadian pulp writer from the sudbury area whose son Brian went on to become a Hockey Night in Canada commentator. Leslie joked he never knew what the "W" stood for.

Kevin Burton Smith www.thrillingdetective.com

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