Talk:Howard R. Garis

Comments

This article has a surprising number of inaccuracies. It is true that he was prolific on his own behalf and for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He wrote some 315 books for the Syndicate from 1905 to 1935 so it is a challenge for most people to keep up with them all. Garis only wrote some of the Baseball Joe series (v. 1-5 only) so that listing is inaccurate. The "Marion Davidson" Camp Fire Girls stories are not Stratemeyer Syndicate so do not belong in that discussion. Neither does his death date.

The most surprising error is to list the 5 volumes of the "Van Powell" Mystery Boys series as by Garis. This is incorrect. "Van Powell" is a pseudonym of Ardon Van Buren Powell (1886-1958). The Garis series also called the Mystery Boys was 2 volumes published by Milton Bradley

1 The Mystery Boys in Ghost Canyon (1930) 2 The Mystery Boys at Round Lake (1931)

To answer a question posted here, "Lang Campbell" is short for Lansing Campbell (1883-1937), the artist for the newspaper illustrations for the Uncle Wiggily bedtime stories. Those were reprinted in book form by Graham & Matlack and later C.E. Graham. Whitman did still later reprints with the Campbell illustrations for certain titles. Most of the thicker books with 12 or more illustrations had different artists who are not generally as beloved.

The Uncle Wiggily Game goes back to the 1920s.

Roger Garis' memoir, My Father Was Uncle Wiggily (McGraw-Hill, 1966), is a book that some look to for what books Howard and other members of his family wrote. However, it is incomplete and inaccurate at times. This is only natural since it was written by Howard's son about a half century after many of the events described when he was just an infant. As an example, when a young man, Roger was hired by Stratemeyer to write some books in the X Bar X Boys series. He relates it as if they were rewritten from dime novels. Instead they were written from new outlines that Stratemeyer composed. Another series, apparently forgotten by Roger, was the Nat Ridley Rapid Fire Detective series from 1926-27 where stories were indeed rewritten from dime novels for several volumes (later ones from outlines).

It is a very complex topic but deserves better treatment than it has received here. To many take Wikipedia entries as reliable and this is an example of an unreliable one at this time.

James D. Keeline Keeline (talk) 14:32, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Untitled

'Happy Home series' content merged and redirect set up from Happy Home Series. See old talk-page talk:Happy Home Series. Cheers, Safflle (talk) 22:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

What a surprise to learn that Garis, whose "Uncle Wiggily" series I loved as a child, was also the author of the "Tom Swift" series and the "Bobbsy Twins" as well!

Wotta guy! God rest his soul.

Richard Spindler Sebring, FL

We have been reading inherited Uncle Wiggily books for several months. The illustrator of all these books is Iang Campbell. I can find little about him from a Google search. Does anyone know anything?

Peder Schaefer Providence, RI

I had the "Uncle Wiggily" game from MB as a child in the early 60s. I have no idea when it was first published, but it's older than 1989 as claimed in the article.

15,000 Newspaper Stories

Regarding this:

"The first Uncle Wiggily story appeared January 10, 1910 ... the newspaper published an Uncle Wiggily story by Garis every day except Sunday... By the time Garis retired from the newspaper in 1947, he had written more than 15,000 Uncle Wiggily stories."

Even if Garis wrote right up to the last day of 1947, there are only 13,868 days from January 10, 1910 through December 31, 1947. Subtracting Sundays yields a maximum total output of about 11,886 stories, if Garis never missed a day.

Greg (talk) 03:58, 4 April 2017 (UTC)