contained autobiographical content and was similar to Alger's rags-to-riches story formula. In 1899, Horatio Alger wrote Stratemeyer as editor of the Good News, asking him to finish one of his manuscripts. Alger was in poor health at the time. When Alger died later the same year, Stratemeyer continued to edit and finish several of Alger's other books. That same year, after Alger died, Stratemeyer wrote and published The Rover Boys, which became a tremendously popular series in the vein of the classic dime novel. The Rover Boys was described as "The first highly successful series by Edward Stratemeyer; each volume had a preface from Edward Stratemeyer himself, thanking his readers and touting the other books. It's generally accepted that Stratemeyer wrote all of the books." He said this series was his personal favorite. Stratemeyer formed the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1905 and hired journalists to write stories based on his ideas. He paid them a flat rate for each book and kept the copyrights to the novels. Personal life He married Magdalena Van Camp, the daughter of a Newark businessman, on March 25, 1891. The couple had two daughters: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1892–1982) and Edna C. Squier (1895–1974), both of whom would later take over the future Stratemeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer enjoyed the outdoors and often took annual summer trips to the Great Lakes, Lake George, and Lake Champlain with his family. They traveled as far as the west coast and Yosemite. A humble man, he never sought public attention and preferred living a private and quiet life with his family at their home on N. 7th Street in the Roseville section of Newark. His relationships with his daughters was described as "warm", and his daughter Harriet recalled that it was a lively atmosphere growing up. Stratemeyer was a member of the Roseville Athletic Club and the New Jersey Historical Association. Stratemeyer died at age 67 in Newark, New Jersey on May 10, 1930, of lobar pneumonia and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey. On May 12, 1930, two days after his death, the New York Times reported that his Rover Boys series "had sales exceeding 5,000,000 copies." Accomplishments He pioneered the book-packaging technique of producing a consistent, long-running series of books using a team of freelance writers. All of the books in the series used the same characters in similar situations. All of the freelance writers, including Mildred