The Motor Girls and The Motor Boys on the Atlantic

This post consists of brief comments about two of the books I read this summer.

I read the first Motor Girls book, The Motor Girls, by Margaret Penrose.  The book was published in 1910.  Cora Kimball gets her very own automobile and solves a minor mystery.

The text is sexist with the boys getting to drive Cora's car.  The boys race Cora's car with a car that belongs to another boy.  The behavior is very irresponsible and results in a wreck.  I felt that the scene belonged in a boys' series book, not a girls' book.  It's so off.

The story has a masquerade near the end that is so boring!  The characters are named by their costumes, and the reader has no idea who is who.  How confusing!

I wasn't very impressed with the book, but I might someday read the other books in the series.  I own most all of them.  This series won't be high on my list.

The Motor Girls series was launched because of the success of the Motor Boys series.  I read The Motor Boys on the Atlantic, which is the only Motor Boys book that I own.  The book was published in 1908.

The boys do a lot of things that they should not do.  I'm sure that the story was perfect for boys of the early 1900s, but this modern female reader couldn't appreciate much of it.  I like many boys' series books, but this one is too strongly a boys' book for my liking.

A ship wrecks, and the boys salvage the cargo that is floating around on the water.  There's no concern about returning the cargo to the owner.  Whoever gets to the cargo first can claim it.

The boys help kill a whale and a shark just to charge admission for people to see them.  They keep the whale on the beach until it decays too much and then they dispose of it.  How disgusting and what a waste!

When the boys are adrift for the second time during the book, the reader learns that they don't have oars since they have seldom needed them.  The reader also learns that the boys' boat has no signal lights.  What a bunch of idiots!

On page 159, the boys use the last of their water while adrift.  They are in the middle of a storm, and since they run out of water, I assume that they have no containers with which to capture any of the rainwater.  These boys have poor planning skills.

I was not very impressed, since I need to like the characters in order to like the story.  I did not like the boys very much.  The Motor Boys series will be very low on my list of books to read, and I'm not sure I will ever read the other titles.

Another book that I read during the same time period was the first Don Sturdy book, which also featured hunting.  I do not enjoy reading about series book characters killing animals for sport.  I had one Boy Hunters book by Ralph Bonehill, which was on my list of books to try.  Instead, I decided that I had no reason to keep it.  I very much doubt that I would enjoy reading it. 

Victor Horton's Idea: The Story That Started It All

James Keeline has recently published "Victor Horton's Idea," which was Edward Stratemeyer's first long story. The story is important, for it was the beginning of Edward Stratemeyer's career. Without Stratemeyer, our favorite series books, including Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, would never have existed. We can go further and conclude that many of our favorite series books that were not connected to the Stratemeyer Syndicate would likely never have existed.

Here, James Keeline explains the importance of this release:

We just released our annotated illustrated edition of Edward Stratemeyer's first professional long story, "Victor Horton's Idea." Although the story is only 18,000 words, I have added annotations, vintage illustrations, and maps so readers can follow along. I have also written a 50-page introduction and added about 26 pages of vintage ads for Stratemeyer's books. It is offered as a 6x9" paperback ($14.99) and hardcover with dust jacket ($24.99). If Stratemeyer had not made this sale in early 1889 for $75, it is quite likely that he would not have continued to establish a professional career that would include 160 of his stories published as books and hundreds more produced through the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Few series of the twentieth century had continuing characters but this is something he refined well beginning with the Rover Boys and his success in this led to competition that includes the books many of us collect. In a way, our field of collecting is due to the sale of this one story. Stratemeyer wanted to buy it back but the publisher would not agree so Edward could never issue it as a book. This is the first time this story has been so issued.

This book is the first in a series of reprints under the 24 Palmer Street Press imprint as Lulu print on demand volumes. The name of the imprint is derived from the address where he lived with his parents from at least 1876 to the end of 1890 and where he did his amateur writings and his earliest professional writings. It is dedicated to reprinting early and scarce Stratemeyer texts. The next book will be Holiday Stories for Boys, Volume 1 which has 13 short stories he wrote in the 1890s for the Newark Sunday Call.

The book can be purchased from 24 Palmer Street Press.

Series Books and Literary Excellence

I read the first two pages of Grace's Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School, a book that I mentioned in a recent post. The book immediately pulled me in, so I know that I need to buy more of them. The Grace Harlowe books will be tough to find in dust jackets.

Whenever I find another series that I think I want to collect, I go to the Girls' Series Group on Yahoo! Groups to see what old discussions I can find. The group is very inactive nowadays, but it used to have excellent discussions. I ran a search for "Grace Harlowe" and began to read the comments.

I found an excellent message about Grace Harlowe and the overall appeal of series books in general. This is a direct link to the message, but you have to be a member of the group in order to read it. The message was posted on June 3, 1999, but I do recall reading it back then. The message made quite an impact on me.

The writer explained that Grace Harlowe and Marjorie Dean are "not very good books in a literary sense. However, just to judge from the comments on this list, the books remain compelling. There's no necessary link between literary excellence and storytelling ability . . . But often, the very lack of literary substance allows characters to achieve a sort of mythic resonance."

This person then stated how the vague descriptions of Nancy Drew have given Nancy Drew a mythical quality that has transcended the decades. So often, the absence of literary descriptions is what draws us into series books. As we read the series books, we become the characters and live through them. It is a great way to escape from the troubles of life and feel like a carefree child again.

For anyone who is relatively new to collecting series books, there is nothing wrong with reading such simple fiction. We all know that series books are not great literature, but the books are examples of storytelling at its best. The writers of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and all of our other old favorites knew how to tell a good story. They were masters of their craft, and their tales have lasted well past their own lifetimes.

The Blythe Girls Series

I am revisiting some of my old message posts from the Vintage Series Books group. This message contains my comments regarding the Blythe Girls series.

From June 20, 2005:

I finished reading the first book in the Blythe Girls series tonight. This is one of those series that is unfortunately overlooked by many collectors. I overlooked it for many years, and I heartily wish that I had started working on a set much sooner than I did.

As I read the first book, I noticed how very real the characters seem. They are described quite well, and I felt like I was experiencing their problems right along with them.

Something that stood out in particular is a plot similarity between this first book in the Blythe Girls series and the first Connie Blair book, The Clue in Blue. In The Blythe Girls: Helen, Margy, and Rose, Rose Blythe goes to work in the millinery department of the Lossar-Martin Department Store. Rose is accused of theft by the floorwalker when valuable plumes disappear from her counter.

In The Clue in Blue, Connie Blair goes to work with her aunt in Campion's Department Store. Connie's Aunt Bet is under suspicion of theft after a valuable hat disappears and after pearls that had disappeared are discovered in her purse. I was not at all surprised at the identity of the thief in the Blythe Girls book, because a very similar character was the thief in the Connie Blair book.

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From July 5, 2005:

After getting sidetracked with other commitments, I resumed reading the Blythe Girls and am currently on Rose's Odd Discovery.

The more I read, the more I am reminded of the trio of Nancy, Bess, and George from the Nancy Drew series. Helen, Margy, and Rose are not like Nancy, Bess, and George in personality, yet it is another trio of girls. Helen and Rose each have a boyfriend, and Margy even has two that she doesn't really want, and somehow all four young men manage to spend so much time with the girls. They even join the girls briefly on their vacation in Three on a Vacation. It reminds me of how Ned, Burt, and Dave always manage to spend time with Nancy, Bess, and George, even on trips around the world.

It also interests me how the Blythe Girls series came to an end just a couple of years after the Nancy Drew series began.

I like how the villain of Rex Pepper comes back to plague Margy and Miss Pepper time and time again as he tries to steal Miss Pepper's fortune.

Helen's Strange Boarder is a good mystery. The truth about Jean Ridgeway is a great mystery and eerie as it parallels a popular novel in the story. I did, however, guess Jean's true identity fairly early in the story. Whenever there is a missing person and then someone else who either seems lost or is an amnesiac, they usually turn out to be one and the same. Series books are usually very predictable in this sense.

There are the same extreme coincidences all through the Blythe Girls books that occur in most series books. A character mentioned briefly near the start of Three on a Vacation turns up unexpectedly near the end of the book, and the same situation occurs with another character in Margy's Secret Mission.

And speaking of Margy's Secret Mission, I loved the part where Margy went undercover at the Royce Clever-Carlton estate. It was exciting, and Margy was in grave danger.

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From August 1, 2005:

I finished the Blythe Girls series a few weeks ago. My favorite book was Rose's Hidden Talent. It read like a fairy tale. Rose had some terrible struggles, but everything worked out perfect in the end.