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COPYRIGHT INFO
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack is copyright © 2014 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
I grew up reading series books from the Stratemeyer Syndicate—the group behind some of the most successful children’s series of all time. (They created not only the Bobbsey Twins, but the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, the Rover Boys, the Dana Girls, the Happy Hollisters, and many, many more.)
The Syndicat’s rules were simple:
All books would be part of a series.
To establish more quickly if a series was likely to be successful, the first several volumes would be published at once. These first volumes are often referred to as “breeders.”
The books would be written under a pseudonym. This would provide for seeming continuity of authorship, even when an author died, and would disguise the fact that series were written by multiple ghostwriters and plot-outliners.
The books would look as much like contemporary adult books as possible, with similar bindings and type-faces.
The books would be of a predictable length.
Chapters and pages should end mid-situation, to increase the reader’s desire to keep reading.
Each book would begin with a quick recap of all previous books in that series, in order to promote those books.
Books might also end with a preview of the next volume in the series: “Nancy…could not help but wonder when she might encounter as strange a mystery as the recent one. Such a case was to confront her soon, The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes.”
The books would be priced at 50 cents, rather than the more common 75 cents, $1.00, or $1.25.
Characters should not age or marry. (Protagonists of early series such as the Rover Boys, Tom Swift, and Ruth Fielding did grow up and marry, but sales dropped afterwards, prompting the Syndicate to make a rule that characters never marry.)
The earliest series from the Stratemeyer Syndicate were general children’s fiction (though they often had elements of mystery mixed in.) It wasn’t until later that mystery series like the Hardy Boys books (debuting in 1927) and Nancy Drew mysteries (1930) gave focus to their lines. After that point, new series focused heavily on mysteries.
Which brings us back to the Bobbsey Twins. They debuted in 1904 with The Bobbsey Twins; or, Merry Days Indoors and Out, the lead volume in The Bobbsey Twins Megapack. Readers already familiar with the Bobbseys probably won’t much recognize these early books, despite their similarity to titles published after 1950. That’s because in the 1950s the Stratemeyer Syndicate began a massive updating of all their older series, modernizing everything, rewriting (and often obliterating) the original plots. As a child, I remember being quite shocked to discover that my new, shiny blue-spined copy of the Hardy Boys mystery The Twisted Claw (about timber piracy in the Northern woods, if I remember correctly) bore absolutely no resemblance to the brown-spined copy of The Twisted Claw (about a secret organization of Caribbean pirates) my father had read as a boy. The original was a lot better, despite being dated.
So here are the first 15 original Bobbsey Twins books, all published between 1904 and 1922. They are unapologetically part of their era: somewhat formal to a modern reader’s ear, socially innocent, and not racially sensitive, with African American characters speaking in dialect. But they have a naive charm and evoke an innocent, gentler era, when youngsters could aspire to goat-cart ownership and romantic figutes like gypsies travelled the land in horse-drawn wagon caravans telling fortunes. How far have we come!
Note to purists: I have taken the liberty of some slight modernizations of language (e.g. “today” instead of “to-day,” downtown instead of “down-town,” and “strange” or “odd” [as felt most appropriate] instead of “queer”) which I think will convey better the original intent of the author.
Enjoy.
—John Betancourt
Publisher, Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
ABOUT THE MEGAPACKS
Over the last few years, our “Megapack” series of ebook anthologies has grown to be among our most popular endeavors. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”
The Megapacks (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, A.E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)
A NOTE FOR KINDLE READERS
The Kindle versions of our Megapacks employ active tables of contents for easy navigation…please look for one before writing reviews on that complain about the lack! (They are sometimes at the ends of ebooks, depending on your reader.)
RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?
Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the Megapack series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).
Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.
TYPOS
Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.
If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.
THE MEGAPACK SERIES
MYSTERY
The Achmed Abdullah Megapack
The Bulldog Drummond Megapack*
The Charlie Chan Megapack*
The Craig Kennedy Scientific Detective Megapack
The Detective Megapack
The Father Brown Megapack
The Girl Detective Megapack
The Second Girl Detective Megapack
The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack
The Second R. Austin Freeman Megapack*
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack*
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack
The
