Born: 12 December 1892, United States
Died: 27 March 1982
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Victor Appleton II, May Hollis Barton, Franklin W. Dixon, Laura Lee Hope, Carolyn Keene
American author and publisher Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was responsible for around 200 book for young people over the course of her career. Her father, Edward Stratemeyer, created the concept for the Nancy Drew series, while Adams wrote plot outlines for her father’s characters and hired and managed ghostwriters like Mildred Wirt Benson to write the books, published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Although Adams claimed she wrote all of the books herself, it is well established that 29 authores did the actual writing, using Adams’s ideas as a starting point, while Adams also edited the manuscripts. Following her father’s 1930 death, she and her sister Edna Adams took control of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and kept the business going despite the Great Depression, with Edna managing business operations and Harriet writing handling publishers. When Edna married in 1942, Harriet took on the business side of the Syndicate as well. Adams ensured Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys were kept up with the times in the 1950s and 1960s, removing stereotypes and streamlining plots and characters. Adams ran the Syndicate for 52 years, until her death in 1982.