Edward Stratemeyer (October 4, 1862, in Elizabeth, New Jersey — May 10, 1930) was an American publisher and writer of books for children. He wrote 150 books himself, and created the well-known fictional book series for juveniles including The Rover Boys (starting in 1899), The Bobbsey Twins (starting in 1904), Tom Swift (starting in 1910), The Hardy Boys (starting in 1927), and the Nancy Drew (starting in 1930) series, among others. In 1893, Stratemeyer was hired by the popular dime-novel writer Gilbert Patten to write for the Street & Smith publication Good News.[1] Stratemeyer pioneered the technique of producing long-running, consistent series of books using a team of freelance writers to write standardized books, which were published under a pen name owned by his company. Through his Stratemeyer Syndicate, founded in 1906, Stratemeyer produced short plot summaries for the books in each series, which he sent to other writers who completed the story, writing a specified number of pages and chapters. Each book would begin with an introduction of the characters and would be interrupted for a quick recapitulation of all the previous books in the series. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey. The Slumber Party Secret, etc.