6/30/1933 Carolyn Keene enters Who's Who

June 30, 1933.  The Stratemeyer Syndicate, which created and sold to publishers, such highly successful series of children's books as the Hardy Boys and Bobbsey Twins, was  determined to maintain the illusion that each series had a single, real author.  That was never demonstrated more clearly than on this date when Helen Stratemeyer, daughter of Edward, the founder, wrote and submitted to Who's Who an entry for Carolyn Keene, the non-existant author of the Nancy Drew mysteries.  In reality most of the books were written by Mildred Wirt Benson, based on outlines written by the Stratemeyers.  Like all the authors, Benson was contractually committed to silence, but as Nancy would note, secrets have a way of being uncovered.

I learned about this in Melanie Rehak's Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her.