Selecting a Pseudonym for The Happy Hollisters
Take a good look at this tally sheet from the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Compiled about 1950, it lists some pseudonym options for a “new” children’s mystery series called The Happy Hollisters, proposed by staff writer Andrew Svenson.
The column at the top left, from JOYCE BLAKE to EDITH BLAKE shows the first round of choices. The list circulated through the offices of the Syndicate, and employees initialed their preferences. HSA=Harriet Stratemeyer Adams; AES=Andrew E. Svenson; LR=Lorry Rickle; AP=Agnes Pearson; and JS=Jocelyn Starczyk.
It’s interesting that all of the first-round names are female. MARY ANN STEWART, penciled in at the bottom of the list, could be a twist on Andrew Svenson’s wife’s maiden name: Marian Stewart.
The winners, with four votes each, were JOYCE BLAKE, JOYCE STARR, and ELAINE FOREST, but ELAINE FOREST was, inexplicably, crossed out and replaced with KATHRYN GATES, who received only three votes. SUSAN HOWE, who also got three votes, is crossed out entirely.
The right-hand column introduces new options, all written in pencil. These are men’s names (keeping in mind that at that time, Leslie was more commonly assigned to men than women—think author Leslie McFarlane or actor Leslie Howard). The winner in this round was ALAN SCOTT.
The most obvious question in all of this raises a mystery: How did they get from these names to JERRY WEST, which wasn’t anywhere on the list? We have no idea!
We do know why they wanted to use a pseudonym. The main reason was simply because that’s the way the Stratemeyer Syndicate operated! Franklin W. Dixon (Hardy Boys), Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew), Laura Lee Hope (Bobbsey Twins), Victor Appleton (Tom Swift)—all are house pseudonyms for Stratemeyer Syndicate series. This practice allowed them to contract with a variety of ghostwriters for each series with the potential to produce more volumes with shorter production turnaround and over a longer period of time. Some of these pen names are still in use today!
Andrew Svenson also wanted book-buying to be as easy as possible for his young readers. Many of these children saved up their allowance, a few coins each week, to get their hands on new series books as soon as they hit the bookstore shelves. He also pointed out that some people have difficulty pronouncing SVENSON (although we always say, if you can say SPHERE, you can say SVENSON). JERRY WEST fit the bill on both counts: a name that was easy to remember and easy to pronounce.
Later the name choice would cause minor confusion, as some young readers thought that Lakers basketball star Jerry West was moonlighting as a children’s author. THAT Jerry West was just starting high school when the first Happy Hollisters book was published in 1953!
Here at TheHappyHollisters.com, we love sleuthing, so we will keep our eyes peeled for clues. We are still reviewing and cataloging thousands of letters and office memoranda from Andrew Svenson’s days at the Stratemeyer Syndicate (1948-1975), and you never know when the answer might turn up. Let us know if you have a theory!