. Tom Swift in the City of Gold or Marvelous and 50 similar items

Victor Appleton was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and its successors, most famous for being associated with the Tom Swift series of books. The character of Tom Swift was conceived in 1910 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company. Stratemeyer invented the series to capitalize on the market for children's science adventure. The Syndicate's authors created the Tom Swift books by first preparing an outline with all the plot elements, followed by drafting and editing the detailed manuscript. The books were published under the house name of Victor Appleton. Edward Stratemeyer and Howard Garis wrote most of the volumes in the original series; Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, wrote the last three volumes. The first Tom Swift series ended in 1941. The tradition of Tom Swift books is that a character from one book initiates the story of the next book. In Tom Swift in the City of Gold, Mr. Illingway, a missionary who Tom rescued in Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, sends a letter to Tom about a gold statue he saw where he was working in Africa. Another missionary had brought it to Africa from some city of gold in Mexico. Unfortunately, this other missionary was now deceased. Information on the location of the city was fuzzy. Despite the briefness of their encounter in the previous book, Mr. Illingway saw in Tom the combination of greed and adventure necessary for tracking down more gold. Perhaps it was his missionary training that allowed him to read people. While Tom was reading the letter from Mr. Illingway to Tom's father and frequent visitor Mr. Damon in the library, Tom didn’t know that Andy Foger was in the adjacent room, the parlor, listening. Andy was there to give a letter from his father to Mr. Swift. So, Andy overheard everything about the city of gold. The story goes on from there. Tom creates a new airship for the trip. Tom and his friends head off to Mexico to hunt for buried treasure, although the treasure was not just in a hole in the ground. The entire city of gold was underground, apparently part of the Aztec empire.