Adventure fiction for juveniles was a hot market in the early years of the twentieth century, with authors like Arthur M. Winfield (the Rover Boys), Laura Lee Hope (the Bobbsey Twins), Victor Appleton (Tom Swift), Franklin W. Dixon (the Hardy Boys, Ted Scott) and Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls). They all had one thing in common - they were all Edward L. Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer built a fiction factory, sketching plots that others wrote for a flat fee, and selling millions. After he died his syndicate was continued by his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who continued to grow the series for decades.
In other publishing news, the first complete English Bible was printed on this day, and the first legal code in North America was adopted, although it didn't see print for 45 years. The first person to create paper from wood pulp, a fiery Irish newspaper publisher in Vermont, was found guilty of sedition on this day for criticizing the president. Our quotes are on the subject of books as well.
The lowliest of all, Francis of Assissi, died on this day in 1226, and today is his feast day. And high into the heavens, today marks the real beginning of the space race. While the US was working on putting a three and a half pound satellite into orbit, the Soviets blasted off first with a 184 pound package that nearly everyone then living heard beeping on the radio.
1535 - The first complete Bible in English was published by Miles Coverdale, an English priest who had been banished to the Continent for preaching against confession and images. The text was based on Tyndales Pentateuch and New Testament, Jerome's Latin Vulgate, and various German and Dutch translations. All sources agree on the date, but the place of publication is variously given as Hamburg, Cologne, or Zürich.
1582 - Pope Gregory XIII proclaimed that the world would skip ten days, the next day would be 15 October. This moved the March equinox back to 21 March, and created a year with an average length of 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds, only 26 seconds slower than the actual tropical year. It created a cycle of 400 years 146,097 days by using a year of 365 days, adding a leap day every fourth year but without a leap day in century years, and including one in the final year of the cycle. The calendar was adopted immediately by Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal.
1636 - The General Court of the Plymouth Colony adopted the first legal code in North America, guaranteeing citizens a trial by jury and required that all laws were to be made with the consent of the freemen of the colony.
1798 - Congressman Matthew Lyon, Republican from Vermont, was convicted of sedition. A newspaper publisher who had gained wealth by first making paper from wood pulp criticized President John Adams' "continual grasp for power" and his "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." The sentence was four months in jail and $1,000 fine, he was easily reelected while in prison. The fine was repaid to Lyon's heirs, with interest, in 1840.
1957 - In preparation for the International Geophysical Year, the US announced plans to launch a satellite, but on this day the Soviets put Sputnik ("Companion" or "Fellow Traveler") into orbit from Kazakhstan. The 184-pound satellite orbited the earth every 95 minutes, travelling at just under 18,000 mph in an elliptical orbit ranging from 141 to 588 miles above the earth. It transmitted data on atmospheric density and the ionosphere by radio for three weeks, then burned up on reentry on 4 January 1958.
Feast of Saint Francis of Assissi, The founder of the Order of Friars Minor or Franciscans, pledged to poverty and service. Son of a wealthy cloth merchant, he was a carefree rich kid until he was taken captive for a year in a local war and was seriously ill, which led him to examine his life. In the church of San Damiano of Assissi he felt the call of Christ saying, "Francis, repair my falling house." He sold a bale of his father's silk to pay for repairs, and his father disowned him in public, at which point Francis gave his father not only his purse, but took off his fine clothes and walked away naked. Went to the Holy Land in 1219 to preach to the Moslems, he didn't convert the Sultan but so impressed the ruler with his faith that the Franciscans were given custody of the Christian sites under Moslem rule. Inaugurated the nativity scene. Often pictured with outstretched arms with birds perched upon his arms and shoulders. Lived 1181 - 1226
1862 - Edward L. Stratemeyer, US children's book producer - Born at Elizabeth, New Jersey, apparently led an unremarkable childhood but consumed dime novels at a great rate, particularly Horatio Alger stories. His first story was "Harry's Trial" in the magazine Our American Boys in 1883, wrote "Victor Horton's Idea" while working in his brother's tobacco store and sold it for $75 in 1889. Wrote various stories, dime novels, and a few hardcover books over the next decade, was hired as an editor at Street & Smith. When Horatio Alger died in 1899 he was given the task of continuing the series (under Alger's name), writing 11 volumes through 1908. Released the first three Rover Boys titles in 1899 under the name Arthur M. Winfield, a total of 30 volumes appeared. Created the Motor Boys in 1906, writing as Clarence Young. About this time he came up with the idea of hiring newspaper writers to write books as "works for hire" for a fee roughly equal to three months' wages for a reporter, a fee tha was about $50 in 1906 and grew to $250 by the time of his death. Jealously guarded the actual identities of the authors, making sure that no two authors ever came to the office at the same time, many of the authors are still unknown. Incorporated the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1910. He wrote under his own name and 65 pseudonyms, wrote or plotted over 1,000 juvenile titles with sales during his lifetime of over 200 million copies. In the year that the first Nancy Drew title was released, Stratemeyer came down with pneumonia a week before his death at New York City on 10 May 1930.
I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of
my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without
the author's knowing it.
- Edith Wharton
A well-educated electorate being necessary to the prosperity of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.
- Toby Bradshaw
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep.
The dead very often have more power than the living.
- Tryon Edwards
There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the
world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
- Miguel de Cervantes
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