Author: Laura Lee Hope

Laura Lee Hope was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the New Jersey-based fiction factory that produced most of the major American children's series of the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. The syndicate was founded by Edward Stratemeyer in 1905 and later run by his daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams from 1930 until her death in 1982. Under various house pseudonyms the syndicate produced Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, the Rover Boys, the Outdoor Girls, and dozens of other long-running series.The Laura Lee Hope name fronted three of the syndicate's major properties: the Bobbsey Twins beginning in 1904, the Outdoor Girls beginning in 1913, and the Moving Picture Girls beginning in 1914. The actual writers behind the name varied book by book and across decades. Edward Stratemeyer wrote some of the earliest Bobbsey Twins books himself. His later ghostwriters included Lilian Garis, Howard Garis (who simultaneously wrote the Uncle Wiggily series under his own name), Elizabeth Ward, Camilla McClave, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Andrew E. Svenson, and others.The syndicate's method was strict. Stratemeyer or Adams would draft a chapter-by-chapter outline. A ghostwriter would produce the manuscript to the outline at a flat fee, usually with no royalties, and would sign over all rights. The result is a remarkably consistent house style across long series. The Bobbsey Twins ran continuously from 1904 to 1979, with seventy-two original volumes plus subsequent revised editions. The series effectively created the format of cozy American children's book that everything from Boxcar Children to Magic Tree House would later borrow.