Gilbert Patten facts for kids
William George "Gilbert" Patten (born October 25, 1866 – died January 16, 1945) was a very famous writer. He wrote many dime novels, which were popular, inexpensive story books. He is best known for creating the exciting Frank Merriwell stories. He used the pen name Burt L. Standish for these adventures.
Contents
About Gilbert Patten
Gilbert Patten was born in Corinna, Maine in 1866. His father was a carpenter. His parents were very religious and believed in peace. They were part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
When he was fourteen, Gilbert started attending Corinna Union Academy. His father told him he would have to work if his school grades did not get better. So, Patten ran away from home. He went to Biddeford, Maine and found a job in a machine shop.
Becoming a Writer
When Gilbert returned home, he told his father he wanted to be an author. His father gave him thirty days to prove himself. During this time, Gilbert sold his first two stories. He sold them to Erastus Flavel Beadle's dime novel company.
For the next four years, he continued his studies. At the same time, he kept writing and publishing stories. When he was twenty, he married Alice Gardner. Their son, Harvan Barr Patten, was born in 1892. Gilbert Patten would later marry two more times.
Early Career and Sports
Patten worked at the Pittsfield Advertiser newspaper. In 1888, he started his own newspaper called the Corinna Owl. He sold it the next year to the Advertiser. After that, he spent his time writing stories. Most of these were westerns for Beadle's Half-Dime Library.
In 1890 and 1891, he managed a semi-professional baseball team. This team was in Camden, Maine. After this baseball season, he moved to New York City. He mostly worked as a writer again. He wrote for publishers like Norman Munro and, for most of his career, for Street & Smith.
The Frank Merriwell Stories
Gilbert Patten was a writer of dime novels. His first published dime novel was The Diamond Sport; or, The Double Face of Bed Rock. It was published in 1886 by Beadle. He wrote western stories using the pen name Wyoming Bill. But he is most famous for his sports stories. These were in the Frank Merriwell series. He wrote them as Burt L. Standish.
Creating an Icon
Patten began writing the Merriwell stories in April 1896. He wrote them for the publisher Street & Smith. He wrote one story every week for twenty years! Each story was about twenty thousand words long. The series appeared in a publication called Tip-Top Weekly.
The Frank Merriwell series was incredibly popular. It sold about 135,000 copies every week. The main characters, brothers Frank and Dick Merriwell, became symbols of great American sportsmanship. Their names even became common words used by sports commentators.
Patten, however, did not earn extra money (royalties) for these stories. He was paid up to $150 per story. He was known as a "hack writer," meaning he wrote quickly for a set fee. The Merriwell series was inspired by popular British stories called Penny Dreadfuls, like Jack Harkaway.
Gilbert Patten also helped with the Frank Merriwell comic strip starting in 1928. He also oversaw the 1934 NBC radio series. In 1893, he hired Edward Stratemeyer to write for the Street & Smith publication Good News.
Later Years and Legacy
From 1927 to 1930, Gilbert Patten started a new series of Frank Merriwell stories. He had help from other writers, sometimes called "ghostwriters." In 1930, Patten started his own publication, The Dime Novel. However, only one issue was ever printed.
Besides the Merriwell stories, Patten wrote 75 complete novels. He also wrote many other stories. He thought he had written 40 million words in total. About 500 million of his books were printed. This makes him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time!
He lived most of his life in Camden, Maine. In 1941, he moved to California. He passed away in his sleep at age 78. This was at his son H. V. Patten's home in Vista, California in 1945.
