NOTE: This site will be moving soon; much of it is already mirrored at http://readseries.com/index.html .
Please update your bookmarks accordingly. Thank you.
19th Century Girls' Series
Long before Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Sweet Valley High, the Babysitters' Club, Goosebumps, or Animorphs, series books provided a source of enjoyable fiction for children. The first children's fiction series appeared in the United States in the 1830s, and by the 1860s the genre was well-established and earning both praise and censure. I've been researching series books for over twenty-five years. This page draws upon some of that research; it is devoted to bio-bibliographies and commentary about some 19th-century authors of series books for girls and younger children as well as samples of some of their fiction. It includes some of the century's most popular authors and a number of lesser-known figures whose works -- now almost forgotten -- show the evolution of the genre. Eventually, I hope to expand the coverage to authors writing in the early part of the 20th century and to add additional etexts and a bibliography of secondary sources.
Currently, the site includes
| Author | Information | Etexts | Supplementary (Primary Sources) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Abbott | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | Cousin Lucy's Stories, chs. 1-4 Juno and Georgie, chs. 5-6 (first African-American series protagonist), Mary Gay - Work for Autumn,ch 1 Friskie, the Pony Harlie's Letter | biographical essay by Lyman Abbott (Jacob's son) |
| Walter Aimwell (William Simonds) | biography series bibliography | ||
| Harriette Newell Woods Baker ("Aunt Hattie," "Mrs. Madeline Leslie") | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | Robin's Nest | |
| Elizabeth Champney | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | 19th cent. biog. sketch with portrait | |
| Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey) | biographical blurb bibliography -- girls' ser. links | "Engineer's Story" (short story) | |
| Amanda Douglas | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | Kathie's Three Wishes, ch 1. - | |
| Martha Finley | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | Elsie Dinsmore, ch. 1- | 19th-cent. biography -- Finley 19th-century critique of Elsie |
| Josephine Franklin | series bibliography | Nelly's First School-days | |
| Joanna Mathews | biographical blurb bibliography -- girls' ser. | ||
| Julia Mathews | biographical blurb | ||
| Sophie May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke) | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | Little Prudy, ch 1-5 Little Prudy's Sister Susy Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's | |
| Pansy (Isabella Macdonald Alden) | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. links | ||
| Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1815 - 1852) | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. | ||
| Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Ward] (1844 - 1911) | bibliography -- girls' ser. | 19th-cent. biographical essay | |
| Elizabeth Prentiss | biography bibliography -- girls' ser. links | Little Susy's Six Birthdays | |
| Laura Richards | bibliography -- girls' ser. | A Sampling of Poems | |
| Penn Shirley (Sarah Jones Clarke) | biographical sketch series bibliography | ||
| 19th-century girls' reading (adult responses to popular fiction) | "Evil of Unlimited Freedom in the Use of Juvenile Fiction" Library Journal (1879) "Reading in the Public Schools" Library Journal (1879) | ||
| Grace Shirley (Lurana Sheldon) | biographical sketch My Queen bibliography (the only girls' dime novel series) | My Queen #3 (dime novel) "Sam Stebbins' Courtship" (short story) | Paper: Urban Images in Street & Smith's My Queen |
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I've also started a listing of the contents (thus, an informal index) for Dime Novel Round-Up,
the longest-running publication devoted to the study of dime novels, series books, and pulp magazines.
Currently, the list covers 1989-2000; information about earlier issues will be added.
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At another site, I've put up biographical and bibliographic information about Josephine Lawrence ,
who ghostwrote 20th-century girls' and tots' series for the Stratemeyer Syndicate and also created some notable series published under her own name.
Copyright 1999-2001 by Deidre Johnson
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