Andrew Svenson, a newspaper reporter and journalist, joined the Stratemeyer Syndicate as a children’s series writer in May 1948. His earliest assignments for the Syndicate involved preparing outlines for new titles in the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew series.
In the early 1950s, Svenson imagined a rough story line and wrote the preliminary outline for a new story in the Nancy Drew series, tentatively titled the Mystery of the Velvet Mask. His outline was assigned to Mildred Wirt Benson, an experienced mystery writer who had been completing books under a variety of pen names for the Stratemeyer Syndicate since the late 1920s. Benson fleshed out the details and added dialogue to Svenson’s outline for Mystery of the Velvet Mask, and volume 30 was published in 1953 as the Clue of the Velvet Mask under the pen name “Carolyn Keene.” It was Benson’s final contribution to the Nancy Drew series.
Svenson went on to develop a new children’s mystery series for boys and girls based on the adventures and exploits of his own children. The Happy Hollisters, written under the pen name “Jerry West,” debuted in 1953 and continued until 1971, eventually comprising 33 volumes in all.
