Did You Know - Literary Series

DID YOU KNOW?

The Hardy Boys books were written by ghostwriters. And the story is actually quite fascinating.

So who was Franklin W. Dixon?

Franklin W. Dixon was not a real person. It was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the book-packaging company founded by Edward Stratemeyer. Multiple writers produced Hardy Boys stories, but the books continued to carry the name Franklin W. Dixon. (stratemeyer.org)

The system worked roughly like this:

Edward Stratemeyer / Syndicate

→ created characters and story outlines

→ hired a ghostwriter

→ ghostwriter wrote the actual manuscript

→ editor revised it

→ published under "Franklin W. Dixon"

The writers generally did not receive public authorship credit and were paid under the Syndicate's system rather than building a public identity around the books. (hardyboysonline.net)

The fascinating part: Leslie McFarlane

The most important early Hardy Boys writer was Leslie McFarlane, a Canadian journalist and writer.

He wrote many of the earliest books and is generally regarded as the writer who established much of the characteristic Hardy Boys style. Penguin Random House identifies him as the first and most well-known "Franklin W. Dixon," crediting him with 19 of the first 25 books. (Penguin Random House)

Interestingly, Stratemeyer supplied the basic outlines, but McFarlane actually turned those outlines into the atmospheric, fast-moving detective stories readers remember. There is even surviving correspondence showing Stratemeyer commenting on McFarlane's manuscript for The Tower Treasure. (stratemeyer.org)

And it wasn't just one ghostwriter

Other writers subsequently worked under the Dixon name, including John Button, Amy McFarlane, Andrew E. Svenson, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, and others. (Wikipedia)

So when you read different Hardy Boys books, you may actually be reading the work of different writers, even though the cover says:

Franklin W. Dixon

This was a deliberate commercial publishing model developed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The same approach was used for other famous series, most famously Nancy Drew, whose books appeared under the fictional name Carolyn Keene. (stratemeyer.org)

And here's the really interesting literary question: because the Hardy Boys were written by different people over decades, the "voice" of Frank and Joe actually changed over time. The earliest McFarlane books have a noticeably different feel from later Hardy Boys books.

Dr Anindita Roy | DesignEducatorDelhi@gmail.com