Tom Swift and His Pocket Library

One of the great things about having a pocket computer or mobile phone is its ability to store electronic books which you can read anywhere, any time. The limited resolution and small size of a PDA or smart phone screen isn't as felicitous a medium for literature as ink on paper or even a high resolution computer screen, but it has the advantage that it's always at hand. With a book or two dozen on a mobile, whenever I'm stuck in a long line at the post office or supermarket, sitting in the dentist's waiting room, or waiting for the train, I can pass the time in one of my favourite ways—reading—even if I didn't pack a book.

As this kind of “handheld reading” tends to be catch as catch can, subject to interruption at any time, it's best to choose light titles which don't require a lot of concentration or a long attention span to appreciate. Early 20th century juvenile pulp fiction fills this bill superbly, and recently I've been reading the original Tom Swift novels published by Edward Stratemeyer under the “house name” of “Victor Appleton” between 1910 and 1941. All of the novels currently available here were ghostwritten by Howard R. Garis, who is also known for writing more than 11,000 Uncle Wiggily stories between 1910 and 1947 and numerous volumes of the Bobbsey Twins series. (Note that there were two subsequent series of books written by “Victor Appleton II” [again, a “house name” pseudonym for various writers] featuring both the Tom Swift and Tom Swift, Jr. characters. I refer here to the original series.)

Many of these books are now in the public domain, and have been made available as Etexts (electronic texts) by Project Gutenberg and Fadedpage. To read these books, I download the original text, modify it to be compatible with my etset program or, for texts in the UTF-8 character set, specialised conversion programs I developed, which I then use to produce a document compatible with the EPUB format supported by numerous electronic book readers and applications. I can then load one of these files onto my handheld, and I'm ready to read it whenever the opportunity arises. Since I already have the text in a portable format, I also go ahead and make HTML and PDF versions which can be read online or printed, and an archive containing the plain text document. When I prepare a document, I invariably fix some typographical errors and improve formatting where necessary for readability. Since these changes result in the document differing from the canonical edition, I distribute it as a pure public domain text, not under the Project Gutenberg trademark. I do this in order to comply with the Project Gutenberg license, not with any intent to deprive Project Gutenberg of the credit they are due for making these documents freely available to readers worldwide.

Available Titles

Currently available titles are listed in the table below. For each Title, columns give the Date of original publication, the Number of the book in the Tom Swift series (the books contain forward and backward references, but can be enjoyed in any order), and links to directly install (on platforms which support this) or download the eReader edition, download the EPUB edition (not currently available for all titles), download a Zipped archive containing the plain ASCII or UTF-8 edition, links to open Web HTML or typeset Adobe PDF versions you can read online or print, and a link to the original source Etext at Project Gutenberg or Fadedpage. The eReader format, used by PalmOS devices and some early electronic book readers, is now completely obsolete and starting with book 26 in the Tom Swift series, I no longer prepare books in that format.

Installing Books on Your Handheld Computer

Titles available in EPUB format, an open standard supported by many mobile reading devices and applications, including most modern Amazon Kindle devices and applications, Apple's iBooks for iOS devices, the Barnes & Noble Nook. EPUB editions are being added as books in the collection are updated; eventually they will be available for all titles. Please consult the documentation for your EPUB-compatible reading device for directions on how to install EPUB books onto it.

Many mobile devices have applications which can read PDF files, so if you can't read EPUB files, this may be an alternative. You can also read the HTML edition with a Web browser, but unless you download it and read it locally, you won't be able to read it except when you have Internet connectivity.

About the Language

These books were written early in the 20th century, in an era when popular fiction often used ethnic terms and dialects which may shock the delicate sensibilities of some readers in our effete, decadent age of walking-on-glass politeness. There's nothing in these books you won't find in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn; indeed, Edward Stratemeyer, creator of the Tom Swift series, was 23 years old when Huck Finn was published, and the first Tom Swift novel appeared in 1910, the year Mark Twain died. Of course, some earnest, politically-correct school librarians have purged Mark Twain's timeless classics from the shelves in the interest of “diversity” (Huh?), so doubtless some self-righteous book burner will inveigh against these books as well. Let 'em.

English spelling has evolved somewhat since these books were published: “gasolene” is now “gasoline”, “aeroplane“ has been simplified to “airplane”, and many compound words coined for new-fangled inventions such as “motor-cycle” are now written as one word. These books preserve the original spellings, both in the interest of authenticity and since it gives them a nice period flavour. If you find an oddly-spelt word which occurs only once, it may be a typo (which you're welcome to report as described below), but if it's spelt that way consistently throughout the book, it's almost certainly that way in the original text.

This document is in the public domain. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this document for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, without any conditions or restrictions. This document is provided “as is” without express or implied warranty.

If you find errors in this document or the books, please report them to Bravo Uniform Golf Sierra @ Foxtrot Oscar Uniform Romeo Mike India Lima Alpha Bravo Decimal Charlie Hotel. If you don't have any idea what I just said, please consult this document. If you're reporting a typo in one of the electronic books, please include the full book title in the “Subject” line and quote the complete line of text (or, better still, paragraph) in which the error occurs along with your report. Thanks!

Fourmilab Home Page