Background

Garis was born on April 25, 1873 in Binghamton, New York, the son of Simeon H. Garis, a railroad telegrapher, and Ellen A. Kimball.

Education

Because his father was frequently transferred, Garis' early education was often interrupted. During his family's stay in Syracuse, he walked through the freight yards with his father and learned to read from the words printed on the boxcars. Soon he became an avid reader, with a special fondness for the Arabian Nights and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

Career

Around the age of sixteen, Garis was rebuffed by a young girl he admired. From that experience came his first novel, "A World Without Women. " He sent the 400-page manuscript to Harper's, but it was rejected. Even so, he hoped to become a writer. Such aspirations were not well received by his practical father, who promptly sent him off to study mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Unsuccessful at Stevens, Garis left at about the age of nineteen and turned to writing magazine articles. After many rejections, he sold his first story to Happenchance for $9. In 1894 his father's death forced him to secure regular employment in order to support himself, his mother, and his two sisters. For $7 a week and board, he found work at a weekly called The Sunnyside, an undertakers' publication. Soon he moved on, trying one job after another until he began writing for Town Talk, a weekly owned by Thomas Burke, city editor for the Newark Evening News. This was his first break, for it led to a personal connection with Burke and then, when he was twenty-three, to a job as a cub reporter for the News. For more than fifty years Garis was a reporter and special writer for the News, although his tenure was punctuated by "retirements" that allowed him to pursue his other writing interests. During off hours at the News, Garis began to write and sell stories to such magazines as Companion and Argosy. In 1902, J. S. Ogilvie published his historical novel, With Force and Arms: A Tale of Love and Salem Witchcraft, which sold fewer than 5, 000 copies and earned him no royalties. Two years later Lippincott published his first children's book, Isle of Black Fire. Around 1905, Garis accepted an offer from Edward M. Stratemeyer to write for the Stratemeyer syndicate. Stratemeyer provided plot outlines and established pen names for writers of children's books. With his active imagination and his ability to write a 35, 000-word book in about a week, Garis began turning out the "Motor Boys" books under the pseudonym Clarence Young. With the success of the "Motor Boys, " Garis went on to write about the young inventor Tom Swift. All the Swift books were published under the pseudonym Victor Appleton, and Garis wrote many of them. The Swift books sold in tens of thousands, but Garis received no royalties, only a fixed stipend of $125 per book. He seemed content with this arrangement, as was his wife, who also worked for the Stratemeyer syndicate. Together they wrote some of the "Bobbsey Twins" books. For Garis this marked the beginning of a prolific career in juvenile writing, a career that would produce more than 700 children's books (many written under pseudonyms) and more than 15, 000 stories concerning his most famous creation, Uncle Wiggily. Garis created Uncle Wiggily in 1910, when Edward M. Scudder, owner and publisher of the Newark Evening News, asked him to write a daily children's column for the paper. In the stories Uncle Wiggily engages in everyday adventures and constantly outsmarts the "Skillery-scallery" alligator and other villains. Each Uncle Wiggily story ends with the promise of another. The first Uncle Wiggily story was published in the News on January 30, 1910. The stories, read by children and adults alike, became quickly popular and were nationally syndicated. Garis wrote six Uncle Wiggily stories every week for more than fifty years. In 1950 Garis and his wife moved to Amherst, Massachussets, to live with their son, Roger. He continued to write his Uncle Wiggily stories until his death at Amherst.

Achievements

• Although many of Garis's children's books follow simplistic plot lines and introduce flat characters, they nevertheless convey a sense of adventure and excitement. His Uncle Wiggily stories manage to rise above his other works because they present memorable and innocently humanized animal characters in a fantasy world with distinctly amusing qualities.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail - The Funny Monkey Boys

    (Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail - The Funny Monkey Boys is pres...)

  • Favorite Uncle Wiggily Animal Bedtime Stories: Unabridged in Easy-to-Read Type (Dover Children's Thrift Classics)

    ( The Littletails are a delightful family of long-eared b...)

  • Uncle Wiggily's Story Book

    (Uncle Wiggily is one of the most popular and enduring cha...)

  • The Curly Tops at Silver Lake by Howard R. Garis

    (Wonderful children's book, 1920 edition.)

  • buddy and the Secret Cave
  • Buddy on the Farm
  • Teddy and the Mystery Deer (the Teddy Series)

Connections

Garis married Lillian C. McNamara, a society editor for the News, on April 26, 1900; they had two children.

Father:

Simeon H. Garis

Mother:

Ellen A. Kimball

Spouse:

Lillian C. McNamara

Son:

Roger Garis

References

• My Father Was Uncle Wiggily: The Story of the Remarkable Garis Family