Tom Swift and his Motor Cycle
The book opens with Tom on an errand for his father. He is on a bicycle, and is nearly run down by one Andy Foger, a red-haired squinty-eyed bully, who is trying to get his new automobile to go as fast as possible. Andy ends up in a ditch, and blames Tom. (This may be the first documented case of "road-rage.") Later on that same trip, Tom encounters one Wakefield Damon, who crashes his new motor-cycle against a tree near Tom's house and is injured. Tom buys the wreck and repairs it, thus leading to his Adventures On the Road.

Tom was been given charge by his father of delivering important patent documents and a proof-of-concept model to an attorney in distant Albany, NY. Those documents, along with the model, a new turbine engine developed by Tom's father Barton, are the central anchor around which the rest of the story revolves.

Barton's turbine design and model are stolen by a gang, posing as tramps. The gang are hired by frustrated investors, seeking to "get ahead" of Barton and capitalize on the new design. The gang attacks Tom and drugs him during his road trip to Albany. Tom escapes, and after some serious detective work, finds the bad-guys' hideout. With the help of Mr. Damon and several other men, Tom recovers the stolen items. The bad guys slip away in the confusion, to return in future episodes.
Fiction, Motorcycles, Adventure and adventurers, Classic Literature, Children's fiction
Howard Roger Garis, Victor Appleton
Howard Roger Garis was born in Birmingham, New York. His father was a railroad employee, and at the age of sixteen, he also obtained a job with the Erie Lackawanna Railroad in Newark, New Jersey. In his downtime in the baggage department, he began to write poems and short stories.

In 1900, when his father died, he started his writing career as a journalist, working for the Newark Evening News, continuing to write fiction at the same time. He met and, in 1900, married a fellow Newark Evening News journalist Lilian McNamara. His first published novel, With Force and Arms: A Tale of Love and Salem Witchcraft (1902), was not successful, but his next two novels, Isle of Black Fire and The White Crystals, both published in 1904, were. He wrote a series of stories called the Professor Jonkin series, the first of which, "Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant," appeared in the boys' pulp magazine Argosy in 1905. 

In 1906, began writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, producing Tom Swift books under the house pseudonym "Victor Appleton"; Bobbsey Twins books (#4-28 and #41) under the pseudonym "Laura Lee Hope"; the Motor Boys series under the pseudonym "Clarence Young"; the Great Marvel series under the pseudonym "Lester Chadwick"; and several Camp Fire Girls books under the pseudonym "Marion Davidson". His wife eventually joined the ghostwriting team, and wrote the Motor Girls series under the pseudonym "Margaret Penrose".

In 1910, he introduced his most famous character, Uncle Wiggily, in the Newark Evening News. A compilation of these stories was published as Uncle Wiggily's Adventures in 1912. He  began to publish other books under his own name, including Larry Dexter and the Bank Mystery (1912), Camp Fire Girls on the Ice (1913), The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch (1918), Rick and Ruddy; the Story of a Boy and His Dog (1920), Rick and Ruddy on the Trail (1924), and Buddy and His Winter Fun (1929). He continued to work at the Newark Evening News and write fiction until his retirement in 1947. In 1950, he and his wife relocated to Amherst, Massachusetts. His wife Lilian died in 1954. || house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate