Authors and Books
for Children

Stratemeyer's Other Garis Ghost: Lilian C. Garis Etexts

Like her husband, Howard R. Garis, Lilian C. Garis was a prolific writer of series fiction for young people for the mighty Stratemeyer Syndicate. Though she didn't turn out books as quickly as her husband did, she still managed to write hundreds of books, both under her own name and under various pseudonyms, including Margaret Penrose and Laura Lee Hope.

Born in 1873, Lilian C. McNamara worked as a reporter for a Newark, New Jersey, newspaper, where she met Howard R. Garis, whom she married on April 26, 1900. She later joined him in writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. (For more about Howard R. Garis, see From Stratemeyer to Uncle Wiggily: Howard R. Garis Etexts.)


The memoir My Father Was Uncle Wiggily, by her son, Roger (who also wrote for Stratemeyer), focuses mainly on Howard R. Garis, but also offers some insights about Lilian's life and writing, including her involvement in community affairs in her hometown of Newark, New Jersey.

Under the rubric "Lilian Garis Books," between 1923 and 1931, she wrote the Gloria Doane (Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad, Gloria at Boarding School), Joan Marsh (Joan: Just Girl, Joan's Garden of Adventure), Nancy Brandon (Nancy Brandon, Nancy Brandon's Mystery), Connie Loring (Connie Loring's Ambition, Connie Loring's Dilemma), Barbara Hale (Barbara Hale: A Doctor's Daughter, Barbara Hale and Cozette), Cleo Kimball (Cleo's Misty Rainbow, Cleo's Conquest), Ted Layton (A Girl Called Ted, Ted and Tony: Two Girls of Today), Sally Graves (Sally for Short, Sally Found Out), and Judy Jordan (Judy Jordan, Judy Jordan's Discovery) stories.

Also under her own name, in the 1930s she wrote the Melody Lane Mystery Stories, an interesting nine-book series that includes such evocative titles as Terror at Moaning Cliff and The Secret of the Kashmir Shawl.

Her Motor Girls series, ten books written from 1910 to 1917 under the pseudonym Margaret Penrose, offered a female version of the Motor Boys series written by her husband under the pseudonym Clarence Young. Also as Margaret Penrose, she wrote the thirteen-book Dorothy Dale series. And as Laura Lee Hope, she contributed to both the Bobbsey Twins and the Outdoor Girls series.

Lilian C. Garis died in 1954.

Bobbsey Twins (as Laura Lee Hope)
#2 The Bobbsey Twins in the Country, 1907
#3 The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore, 1907

Several other Bobbsey Twins books on the Web were ghostwritten by other writers: #1 The Bobbsey Twins, or Merry Days Indoors and Out, 1904, by Edward Stratemeyer, and the others by Lilian C. Garis's husband, Howard R. Garis (see From Stratemeyer to Uncle Wiggily: Howard R. Garis Etexts). Information on the ghostwriters of the various volumes is from Who Wrote the Bobbsey Twins?

Dorothy Dale (as Margaret Penrose)
#1 Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day, 1908

Girl Scouts
#1 The Girl Scout Pioneers, or Winning the First B.C., 1920

Motor Girls (as Margaret Penrose)
#1 The Motor Girls, or A Mystery of the Road, 1910
#2 The Motor Girls on a Tour, or Keeping a Strange Promise, 1910
#5 The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake, or The Hermit of Fern Island, 1912
#8 The Motor Girls on Waters Blue, or The Strange Cruise of the Tatar, 1915