The significance of Charles Asbury Stephens as a writer of children's literature is tied to his long, successful association with the popular periodical Youth's Companion, whose phenomenal increase in circulation to a peak of five hundred thousand copies in 1890 he helped achieve. He was prolific, writing some three thousand short stories and sketches and about two hundred fifty serials, many of them under a variety of pseudonyms, of which the best known probably was Charles Adams. Some of his work was reprinted in book form.

Most of his writing for children can be classified into two categories, travel stories and reminiscences of his childhood. His work, particularly his travel stories, contains a strong pedagogical element, even to the point that educating readers at times becomes the primary emphasis. Convinced that children preferred stories which they believed to be real, Stephens cultivated that characteristic in his writing, making his...