HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

The Hardy Boys

Since the first book was published in 1927, an American institution has been the Hardy Boys mystery series. They are still published today although the tone and language is more in tune with modern times. The best reading is from the ones published the year in which they were written. In the early books there were no modern conveniences that kids have today. The Hardy brothers, Frank and Joe, were always getting into some sort of scrape with bad guys and managed to get out through their own wiles and determination.

My first experience with them began in the late 1940’s. A man that worked with my father had a son that went off to college and he had a lot of the early Hardy Boys books. They sat around until I was old enough to read them and then I was hooked. I kept them long after I finished with them and read them to my sons as they were growing up. For about five years, I read two chapters a night before they went to bed. Since they were each exactly twenty-five chapters long and each chapter was ten pages, this worked out to a nice time frame.

The original six books were written by a Canadian named Leslie McFarlane under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. They are still published today under that name. Leslie McFarlane only received $25 each for those historical volumes. He sold the rights to the New Jersey publisher named Edward Stratemeyer. Mr. Stratemeyer had a company that employed ghostwriters to expand into a book the outline for the twenty five chapters which he would provide for them. The company was also responsible for putting out in the same manner all the Nancy Drew mysteries. At one time, the Stratemeyer Syndicate was responsible for about 90% of all children’s books.

It is really hard to interest children today in reading, but there is nothing like a good book. If a love of books is instilled in children at an early age, then it may be with them throughout their lives. Reading to a child at night is a good way to get them settled down. I know the half hour or so we spent reading every night was beneficial to all.

Maybe I will get into another favorite of mine sometime and that is the Uncle Wigglely series by Howard Garis. My children loved them, too.