Unless one is building a private library that encompasses multiple genres, it is almost impossible to grasp the sheer number of books that are published in series. But if you collect fiction featuring any of the following characters, you are collecting series fiction: Abbey Girls; Amelia Bedelia; Artemis Fowl; Berenstain Bears; Biggles; The Bobbsey Twins; Hal Keen; The Hardy Boys; Harry Potter; Hercule Poirot; Jack McGurk; James Bond; Jason Bourne: Jim Chee; Joe Leaphorn; Lord Peter Wimsey; Madeline; Miss Marple; Nancy Drew; Nick Carter; Pee-Wee Harris; Peter Decker; Roy Blakeley; Sherlock Holmes; Skippy Dare; Tarzan; Tom Slade; Tom Swift; Westy Martin:
We could extend this list for dozens of pages and only scratch the surface of this publishing enterprise. Mystery and its sub-genres alone comprise over 3300 series! If you wanted to build a private library comprised only of juvenile series books that are currently in print, you would need shelf space for close to 30,000 books:
Fortunately, there are a number of online databases available that can help one make some sense of what's out there, and many of these databases are free. Most are based on printed bibliographies that are more easily updated in electronic format. For example, if you collect series fiction that is penned by multiple authors, you might click here or here. If you collect fiction series penned by a single author, you might want to click here. Publishers' series, which are published in numerical order but which contain titles that are not necessarily related (e.g., Harlequin Presents), can be tracked here. There are many more such databases available, as a simple Internet search will reveal....
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