In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Bibliographies of Series Books
  • R. Gordon Kelly (bio)
A Bibliography of Hard-cover Boys' Books, by Harry K. Hudson. Inverness, FL: Data Print, 1977.
Girls Series Books: A Checklist of Hardback Books Published 1900-1975, compiled by Karen Nelson Hoyle and others. Minneapolis: Children's Literature Research Collections, University of Minnesota Libraries, 1978.

It is one of the minor ironies of children's literature scholarship that the series book, which has generally been denigrated or ignored by custodians and students of children's literature, should be better served bibliographically than are most areas of the field. The publication in 1977 of an enlarged version of Harry K. Hudson's bibliography of boys' series books and the publication a year later of Girls Series Books greatly extends the limited bibliographical coverage afforded by Frank M. Gardner's Sequels (6th ed., 1974) and Judith and Kenyon Rosenberg's Young People's Literature in Series (1972-73). The former includes American juvenile series published in Great Britain but is not comprehensive, whereas the latter is relatively comprehensive, but only for the period from 1955 to 1972 (a supplement published in 1977 extends the coverage through 1975 and picks up earlier series overlooked in the first compilation).

Girls Series Books, produced by Karen Nelson Hoyle and her staff at the Children's Literature Research Collections, University of Minnesota, inspires more confidence than does Hudson's compilation, which is the work of a devoted but unscholarly collector. Prefaced by a shorter but more useful introduction, Girls Series Books reveals more care in its preparation and production. Although it is printed by offset from typed copy, the book has a clean, crisp appearance, in contrast with the cluttered, confusing typography of Hudson's bibliography. Girls Series Books covers the period from 1900 to 1975—dates chosen to complement Hudson's—and is limited to American series fiction, a "series" being defined [End Page 214] as "three or more books that have parallel titles or the same character." Excluded are animal and picture books, as well as nonfiction works, and books of fewer than 48 pages. The series are arranged alphabetically by title. In some cases, for example, the Anne Thornton series, the title has been assigned by the compilers. For each series, the compilers provide the name of the author, with dates, when known; pseudonym, when applicable; and publisher, followed by a chronological list of titles comprising the series. Titles held in the University of Minnesota collections are designated—a useful bit of information, but not nearly so useful as a listing of research collections around the country that hold substantial numbers of series books would be. The main entries are supplemented by author and publisher indexes as well as an index of the first title of each series, arranged chronologically and grouped by decade. The author index includes cross-references to pseudonyms, but it does so in an unfortunate way. Under L. Frank Baum, for example, are listed three series: Aunt Jane's Nieces, Mary Louise, and the Oz stories, together with a reference to Baum's pseudonym, Edith Van Dyne. Under Van Dyne, in turn, are listed Aunt Jane's Nieces and Mary Louise. A better procedure would have been to designate in the Baum entry the two series written under the pseudonym, limiting the Van Dyne entry to a simple cross-reference. Sorting the Baum books from Edith Van Dyne's is simple, of course, but in the case of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the reader who is so inclined must consult fifteen index entries if he or she wishes to combine series titles with pseudonyms, a needlessly cumbersome procedure. In addition, the checklist trusts contemporary listings in Publishers' Trade List Annual and, as a result, includes some "ghost books": Aunt Jane's Nieces on Tour, for example, is listed even though it was only a preliminary title for Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West, which is also listed. Dr. Hoyle and her staff are planning companion checklists of nineteenth-century girls' books and animal series books, both of which will be useful additions to the bibliographical literature on series books.

Hudson's bibliography is a revised version of his earlier, privately printed work...

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