• Title: The Rover Boys: On The Plains
• Author: Arthur Winfield
• Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
• Estimated year of printing: 1907

Notes: 

The Rover Boys, or The Rover Boys Series for Young Americans, was a popular juvenile series written by Arthur M. Winfield, a pseudonym for Edward Stratemeyer. Thirty titles were published between 1899 and 1926 and the books remained in print for years afterward.  

This book series has mostly been forgotten, but it is notable in that it was the first juvenile book series created by Stratemeyer, who would go on to create The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsey Twins (using various other pseudonyms).  This series is about brothers Tom, Sam, and Dick Rover, who were students at a military boarding school and were adventurous, prank-playing adolescents causing mischief for authorities and sometimes criminals. The series often incorporated modern technology of the era, such as the automobile, airplanes and news events, such as World War I.  This series was unique compared to the others in that the boys aged and grew up — eventually they graduated and their children Fred, Jack, Andy and Randy became the main characters. 

This book was originally published in 1906 by The Mershon Company, a publishing company which went bankrupt the same year.  In 1907 the series was taken over the Grosset & Dunlap, with the same covers and design.  Since this copy mentioned Grosset & Dunlap (with a copyright attribution to Mershon), it has to have been published in 1907.

Edward Stratemeyer (1862 – 1930) was an American publisher, writer of children’s fiction, and founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He was one of the most prolific writers in the world, producing in excess of 1,300 books himself, selling in excess of 500 million copies.

Historical context:

When this book was published in 1907, Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States.  The Ford Model T would appear on the market the following year in 1908, and in 1909 the penny would adopt the Abraham Lincoln design.