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Tom Swift is the protagonist in a series of children's adventure novels from the early twentieth century. The stories featured technology (especially transport technology) as the real star.
Tom Swift is a young inventor living in the town of Shopton in New York State. His father is the frail inventor Barton Swift who is too infirm to take part in many adventures. Tom himself is by no means lab-bound, and is in good physical shape, which is fortunate as his adventures are inevitably strenuous. His best friend is Ned Newton, not himself an inventor; his girlfriend (and later wife) is Mary Nestor.
The grounds keeper at the Swift estate is Eradicate Sampson, known as "Rad". Though portrayed with some affection, the elderly ex-slave Sampson is an unfortunate example of the demeaning comic black stereotype common in American popular culture of the time. Illiterate, Sampson once packed a gift from Tom to Mary in a leftover box labelled "dynamite", an incident which is often referenced later. Despite the stereotypical "darkie" behavior attributed to "Rad", he accompanies Tom on several of his adventures and demonstrates his courage many times. In Thomas Pynchon's short story "The Secret Integration" (1964), the "boy genius" Grover is tormented by Tom Swift books which constantly appear around his home. Discussing the matter with his friend Tim, he wonders whether his parents are trying to make him into an inventor or a racist.
Tom's most remembered friend is Mr. Wakefield Damon, from whom Tom bought the motorcycle on which he started his adventures. Mr. Damon is much given to colorful expostulations such as: "Bless my collarbutton!", and he can be expected to deliver several such at any appearance. (Mr. Damon, long gone, is memorialized in the Tom Swift, Jr. series by having his name sentimentally attached to one of Tom Jr.'s inventions, the damonscope.)
Tom's adversary in the beginning was Andy Foger, a well-off bully who tried to match Tom's capabilities with money. As Tom's reach increased, so did the reach of his adversaries, until finally he was up against an entire country (Haargoland).
In comparison to Tom Jr., Tom Sr.'s inventions are closer to the state-of-the-art at the time of writing. While some of Tom Sr.'s inventions are complete fantasy, most never rise to the level of Tom Jr.'s magical inventions.
Tom's adventures are more closely wedded to current events of the time than the later series. Tom used the Electric Runabout to avert a run on a bank. And during wartime, Tom was secretly working on his War Tank and could not enlist- this lead to fears that he was a slacker. Contemporary children reading these will also have to remember that when Tom refers to the Great War, it's because it wasn't called World War I until World War II occurred. Of course, he wasn't called Tom Swift, Senior until Tom Swift, Junior, appeared.
The books were written under the pseudonym Victor Appleton, who was really Howard Garis for most of the novels, and W. Bert Foster, John Duffield, and Thomas M. Mitchell for some others. The pseudonym was created by Edward Stratemeyer as part of his Stratemeyer Syndicate.
Another 33 books were written in the Tom Swift, Jr. series, which were created to the pseudonym of Victor Appleton II. Two other series followed, Tom Swift III published from 1981 to 1984 and Tom Swift IV from 1991 to 1993. The former series featured Tom and a troupe of friends exploring the universe in the starship Excedra, using a faster-than-light drive which Tom had reverse engineered from an alien space probe. The fourth series is perhaps the most rigorously connected to the technology of its time; for example, one of Tom's inventions for improving telescope resolution using a laser has in fact been implemented, and information technology plays as important a role as the super-vehicles the series has always been associated with. In both series, Tom's father is named Thomas Swift, Sr., and is the chief executive of Swift Enterprises. Inside jokes, such as allusions to Tom Swift, Jr.'s Lake Carlopa, indicate that the fourth series's writers were at least passingly familiar with Tom Swift's earlier incarnations.
A Tom Swifty is a type of pun. However, this sentence structure is not actually used in the text of the series. The format of the book titles is also occasionally used in jokes, for example Tom Swift and His Electrical Girlfriend.
List of Tom Swift Books
Books in The Original Tom Swift Series
- Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle: Fun and Adventure on the Road 1910
- Tom Swift and His Motor Boat: The Rivals of Lake Carlopa 1910
- Tom Swift and His Airship: The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud 1910
- Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat: Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure 1910
- Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road 1910
- Tom Swift and His Wireless Message: The Castaways of Earthquake Island 1911
- Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers: The Secret of Phantom Mountain 1911
- Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice: The Wreck of the Airship 1911
- Tom Swift and His Sky Racer: The Quickest Flight on Record 1911
- Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle: Daring Adventures on Elephant Island 1911
- Tom Swift in the City of Gold: Marvelous Adventures Underground 1912
- Tom Swift and His Air Glider: Seeking the Platinum Treasure 1912
- Tom Swift in Captivity: A Daring Escape by Airship 1912
- Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera: Thrilling Adventures While Taking Moving Pictures 1912
- Tom Swift and His Great Search Light: On the Border for Uncle Sam 1912
- Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon: The Longest Shots on Record 1913
- Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone: The Picture That Saved a Fortune 1914
- Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship: The Naval Terror of the Seas 1915
- Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel: The Hidden City of the Andes 1916
- Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders: The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold 1917
- Tom Swift and His War Tank: Doing His Bit for Uncle Sam 1918
- Tom Swift and His Air Scout: Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky 1919
- Tom Swift and His Undersea Search: The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic 1920
- Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters: Battling with Flames in the Air 1921
- Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive: Two Miles a Minute on the Rails 1922
- Tom Swift and His Flying Boat: Castaways of the Giant Iceberg 1923
- Tom Swift and His Great Oil Gusher: The Treasure of Goby Farm 1924
- Tom Swift and His Chest of Secrets: Tracing the Stolen Inventions 1925
- Tom Swift and His Airline Express: From Ocean to Ocean by Daylight 1926
- Tom Swift Circling the Globe: The Daring Cruise of the Air Monarch 1927
- Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures: The Greatest Invention on Record 1928
- Tom Swift and His House on Wheels: A Trip around the Mountain of Mystery 1929
- Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible: Adventures Over the Forest of Fire 1930
- Tom Swift and His Sky Train: Overland Through the Clouds 1931
- Tom Swift and His Giant Magnet: Bringing Up the Lost Submarine 1932
- Tom Swift and His Television Detector: Trailing the Secret Plotters 1933
- Tom Swift and His Ocean Airport: Foiling the Haargolanders 1934
- Tom Swift and His Planet Stone: Discovering the Secret of Another World 1935
- Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope 1939
- Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer 1941
Books in The Tom Swift, Jr. Adventure Series
- Tom Swift and His Flying Lab 1954
- Tom Swift and His Jetmarine 1954
- Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship 1954
- Tom Swift and His Giant Robot 1954
- Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster 1954
- Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space 1955
- Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter 1956
- Tom Swift in The Caves of Nuclear Fire 1956
- Tom Swift on The Phantom Satellite 1956
- Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane 1957
- Tom Swift and The Deep-Sea Hydrodome 1958
- Tom Swift and His Race to the Moon 1958
- Tom Swift and His Space Solartron 1958
- Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope 1959
- Tom Swift and His Spectromarine Selector 1960
- Tom Swift and The Cosmic Astronauts 1960
- Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X 1961
- Tom Swift and The Electronic Hydrolung 1961
- Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar 1962
- Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober 1962
- Tom Swift and The Asteroid Pirates 1963
- Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway 1963
- Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker 1964
- Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector 1964
- Tom Swift and His Polar -Ray Dynasphere 1965
- Tom Swift and His Sonic Boom Trap 1965
- Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron 1966
- Tom Swift and The Mystery Comet 1966
- Tom Swift and The Captive Planetoid 1967
- Tom Swift and His G-Force Inverter 1968
- Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule 1969
- Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express 1970
- Tom Swift and The Galaxy Ghosts 1971
Books in Tom Swift (Third Series)
- Tom Swift: The City in the Stars 1981
- Tom Swift: Terror on the Moons of Jupiter 1981
- Tom Swift: The Alien Probe 1981
- Tom Swift: The War in Outer Space 1981
- Tom Swift: The Astral Fortress 1981
- Tom Swift: The Rescue Mission 1981
- Tom Swift: Ark Two 1982
- Tom Swift: Crater of Mystery 1983
- Tom Swift: Gateway to Doom 1983
- Tom Swift: The Invisible Force 1983
- Tom Swift: Planet of Nightmares 1984
Books in Tom Swift (Fourth Series)
- The Black Dragon 1991
- The Negative Zone 1991
- Cyborg Kickboxer 1991
- The DNA Disaster 1991
- Monster Machine 1991
- The Aquatech Warriors 1991
- The Moonstalker 1992
- The Microbots 1992
- Fire Biker 1992
- Mind Games 1992
- Mutant Beach 1992
- Death Quake 1993
- Quantum Force 1993
Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thrillers
Hardy Boys crossover books from the fourth series:
Many of the Tom Swift books are available as downloadable texts from Project Gutenberg.
Asteroid (14941) Tomswift is named in honor of this fictional inventor.
External links
- eTexts of Garis's works, under the pseudonym of Victor Appleton, at Project Gutenberg
- Tom Swift And His Amazing Works Catalog
- Tom Swift, Jr.: An Appreciation