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Tom Swift

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File:Tswift92.gif
A Tom Swift book from the fourth series.

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.)

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, and maintains only a loose connection to the continuity of the two previous series. 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. Tom III is a descendant of the first and second Tom Swifts, and Tom IV's father is likely the second, having built Jr.-type rockets in his youth. 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 Electric Girlfriend.

List of Tom Swift Books

Books in The Original Tom Swift Series

  1. Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle: Fun and Adventure on the Road 1910
  2. Tom Swift and His Motor Boat: The Rivals of Lake Carlopa 1910
  3. Tom Swift and His Airship: The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud 1910
  4. Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat: Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure 1910
  5. Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road 1910
  6. Tom Swift and His Wireless Message: The Castaways of Earthquake Island 1911
  7. Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers: The Secret of Phantom Mountain 1911
  8. Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice: The Wreck of the Airship 1911
  9. Tom Swift and His Sky Racer: The Quickest Flight on Record 1911
  10. Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle: Daring Adventures on Elephant Island 1911
  11. Tom Swift in the City of Gold: Marvelous Adventures Underground 1912
  12. Tom Swift and His Air Glider: Seeking the Platinum Treasure 1912
  13. Tom Swift in Captivity: A Daring Escape by Airship 1912
  14. Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera: Thrilling Adventures While Taking Moving Pictures 1912
  15. Tom Swift and His Great Search Light: On the Border for Uncle Sam 1912
  16. Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon: The Longest Shots on Record 1913
  17. Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone: The Picture That Saved a Fortune 1914
  18. Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship: The Naval Terror of the Seas 1915
  19. Tom Swift and His Big Tunnel: The Hidden City of the Andes 1916
  20. Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders: The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold 1917
  21. Tom Swift and His War Tank: Doing His Bit for Uncle Sam 1918
  22. Tom Swift and His Air Scout: Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky 1919
  23. Tom Swift and His Undersea Search: The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic 1920
  24. Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters: Battling with Flames in the Air (1921)
  25. Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive: Two Miles a Minute on the Rails 1922
  26. Tom Swift and His Flying Boat: Castaways of the Giant Iceberg 1923
  27. Tom Swift and His Great Oil Gusher: The Treasure of Goby Farm 1924
  28. Tom Swift and His Chest of Secrets: Tracing the Stolen Inventions 1925
  29. Tom Swift and His Airline Express: From Ocean to Ocean by Daylight 1926
  30. Tom Swift Circling the Globe: The Daring Cruise of the Air Monarch 1927
  31. Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures: The Greatest Invention on Record 1928
  32. Tom Swift and His House on Wheels: A Trip around the Mountain of Mystery 1929
  33. Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible: Adventures Over the Forest of Fire 1930
  34. Tom Swift and His Sky Train: Overland Through the Clouds 1931
  35. Tom Swift and His Giant Magnet: Bringing Up the Lost Submarine 1932
  36. Tom Swift and His Television Detector: Trailing the Secret Plotters 1933
  37. Tom Swift and His Ocean Airport: Foiling the Haargolanders 1934
  38. Tom Swift and His Planet Stone: Discovering the Secret of Another World 1935
  39. Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope 1939
  40. Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer 1941

Books in The Tom Swift, Jr. Adventure Series

  1. Tom Swift and His Flying Lab 1954
  2. Tom Swift and His Jetmarine 1954
  3. Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship 1954
  4. Tom Swift and His Giant Robot 1954
  5. Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster 1954
  6. Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space 1955
  7. Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter 1956
  8. Tom Swift in The Caves of Nuclear Fire 1956
  9. Tom Swift on The Phantom Satellite 1956
  10. Tom Swift and His Ultrasonic Cycloplane 1957
  11. Tom Swift and The Deep-Sea Hydrodome 1958
  12. Tom Swift and His Race to the Moon 1958
  13. Tom Swift and His Space Solartron 1958
  14. Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope 1959
  15. Tom Swift and His Spectromarine Selector 1960
  16. Tom Swift and The Cosmic Astronauts 1960
  17. Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X 1961
  18. Tom Swift and The Electronic Hydrolung 1961
  19. Tom Swift and His Triphibian Atomicar 1962
  20. Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober 1962
  21. Tom Swift and The Asteroid Pirates 1963
  22. Tom Swift and His Repelatron Skyway 1963
  23. Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker 1964
  24. Tom Swift and His 3-D Telejector 1964
  25. Tom Swift and His Polar -Ray Dynasphere 1965
  26. Tom Swift and His Sonic Boom Trap 1965
  27. Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron 1966
  28. Tom Swift and The Mystery Comet 1966
  29. Tom Swift and The Captive Planetoid 1967
  30. Tom Swift and His G-Force Inverter 1968
  31. Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule 1969
  32. Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express 1970
  33. Tom Swift and The Galaxy Ghosts 1971

Books in Tom Swift (Third Series)

  1. Tom Swift: The City in the Stars 1981
  2. Tom Swift: Terror on the Moons of Jupiter 1981
  3. Tom Swift: The Alien Probe 1981
  4. Tom Swift: The War in Outer Space 1981
  5. Tom Swift: The Astral Fortress 1981
  6. Tom Swift: The Rescue Mission 1981
  7. Tom Swift: Ark Two 1982
  8. Tom Swift: Crater of Mystery 1983
  9. Tom Swift: Gateway to Doom 1983
  10. Tom Swift: The Invisible Force 1983
  11. Tom Swift: Planet of Nightmares 1984

Books in Tom Swift (Fourth Series)

  1. The Black Dragon 1991
  2. The Negative Zone 1991
  3. Cyborg Kickboxer 1991
  4. The DNA Disaster 1991
  5. Monster Machine 1991
  6. The Aquatech Warriors 1991
  7. The Moonstalker 1992
  8. The Microbots 1992
  9. Fire Biker 1992
  10. Mind Games 1992
  11. Mutant Beach 1992
  12. Death Quake 1993
  13. Quantum Force 1993

Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thrillers

Hardy Boys crossover books from the fourth series:

  1. Time Bomb 1992
  2. The Alien Factor 1993

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.

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