The Bobbsey Twins

-Written by Laura Lee Hope

The Bobbsey Twins live in the "eastern city" of Lakeport, which is clearly in the Northeast because it snows a lot there, at the head of Lake Metoka. Mr. Bobbsey is a prosperous lumber merchant. Mrs. Bobbsey is a housewife. Bert and Nan are the older twins, and Flossie and Freddie are the younger set.

Also living under the Bobbsey roof are Dinah and Sam Johnson, an African-American couple. Dinah is the Bobbsey family's cook and housekeeper, while Sam has been variously described, depending on the vintage of any particular book, as the Bobbseys' "man of all work", their chauffeur, a neighborhood handyman, or a truck driver at the Bobbsey lumberyard (in later volumes, Mr. Bobbsey's most trusted employee). Other characters include Charlie Mason, Bert's best friend, Nellie Parks, Nan's best friend, Susie Larker, Flossie's best friend, and Teddy Blake, Freddie's best friend, as well as "Aunt" Sallie Pry, an elderly, nearly deaf woman, who was a close family friend, and Danny Rugg, a neighborhood bully and nemesis to the Bobbseys. They all live in the fictional city of Lakeport, on the shore of the equally fictional Lake Metoka, presumably somewhere in the Northeastern U.S. The Bobbseys have relatives "in the country" (Richard Bobbsey's brother Daniel and his family, introduced in Vol. 2) on a farm near the rural town of Meadowbrook (in most books set there, that is also the name of the farm itself), and other relatives "at the seashore" (Mary Bobbsey's sister Emily Minturn and her family, introduced in Vol. 3), who live in the seaside hamlet of Ocean Cliff.