Hardy boys

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The Hardy Boys is a detective novel series for young people. It is about the adventures of the brothers Frank and Joe Hardy. The Hardy Boys have been translated into more than 25 languages. In 2001, the first volume was 55th among the best-selling children's and young people's books, having sold 2,209,774 times.

Emergence

Edward Stratemeyer

The original Hardy Boys series was produced by Stratemeyer Syndicate , published by Grosset & Dunlap, and ghostwritten by many different authors under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon between 1927 and 1979. The authors had to adhere to templates from Edward Stratemeyer, his daughter Edna C. Stratemeyer, Edna Squier, Harriet S. Adams and Andrew E. Svenson.

The lead author was Leslie McFarlane, who wrote 20 of the Hardy Boys books. Other authors were Andrew E. Svenson, Vincent Buranelli, John Button, Harriet S. Adams, James Duncan Lawrence, William Dougherty, James Buechler, George Waller Jr., Richard Cohen, John Almquist, Alistair M. Hunter, David Grambs, Tom Mulvey and Jerrold Mundis. From 1959 onwards, the outdated first episodes of the novel series were completely revised to make them acceptable to a new generation of young people.

In 1979 the rights to Simon & Schuster were sold and subsequently published as Wanderer Hardy Boys (also Digests ). However, the volume count continued as if nothing had changed and many of the authors of the original series remained active until the bound book series finally came to an end in 1985 with Volume 85.

Characters and plot

In the English original, the main characters are Frank and Joe Hardy. Frank Hardy is tall, 18 years old and dark-haired. Joe (or Jan) Hardy is 17 years old, blonde, blue-eyed, impetuous and energetic. Both ride a motorcycle.

You live in Bayport, a town close to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean . The fictional Bayport is believed to be based on Bayport, New York State .

Her father, Fenton Hardy, is an internationally known detective and sometimes gives his sons permission to help him with his cases, e.g. B. by watching someone. He is thin and athletic and drives a black sedan . He lives with his wife and sons.

Chet Morton is a friend of the Hardy Boys. He likes to eat and is therefore rather compact. He likes to tinker with machines and tune engines.

Iola Morton is Chet's pretty, dark-haired sister and best friend of the blond, brown-eyed, brave Callie Shaw, whom Frank Hardy is interested in.

Biff Hooper is another friend of the Hardy Boys. He and Chet Morton are involved in solving criminal cases. He is skinny and can run and jump quickly.

Together they solve criminal cases, whereby the plot gets by with a minimum of violence.

Paperback series

After the Hardy Boys book series ended as bound books, it was not until 1987 that new Hardy Boys books were produced as paperbacks. The new series was called Hardy Boys Casefile and the last volume to date, 127, was published in 1998. The fictional world of the Hardy Boys changes in the casefiles; there is more violence, the characters change. Iola Morton, Chet Morton's sister, is killed by a car bomb in the first volume. At the same time, since 1988, there has been the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys Supermystery series , in which the Hardy Boys work together with the emancipated young detective Nancy Drew . The last volume of the Supermysteries was also published in 1998.

Cultural reception

  • Charles F. Haas produced the first television series about the Hardy Boys in 1956.
  • In 1957 there was the next series, this time by RG Springsteen .
  • In 1969 a cartoon was made with characters from the book series.
  • From 1977 to 1979 there was a television series in the USA with the characters from the book series.
  • In 1995 there was a television series in which the Hardy Boys seem to have grown up.
  • The episode Mystery of the Urinal Deuce (German title "Scheiß Paranoia", first broadcast in 2007) of the cartoon series South Park , which was first broadcast in the USA in 2006, contains a parody in the form of the Hardly Boys (in German: "Almost no boys").
  • The computer game manufacturer JoWooD brought out an adventure game in 2008 with motifs from The Hardy Boys . It's named after the book series, The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft . In 2008 the game won the Just the Best award of the Vienna Games Academy as part of the Ultimate Games Award 2008 . The game also has a page on the Internet Movie Database because the characters are voiced by well-known American actors.

Literature on the book series

  • Leslie McFarlane: Ghost of the Hardy Boys: An Autobiography . 1st edition. Methun / Two Continents, Toronto, New York, London, Sydney, Wellington 1976, ISBN 0-8467-0157-X (English).
  • Marilyn S. Greenwald: Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie Mcfarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate . Ohio University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8214-1547-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Debbie Hochman Turvey, Diane Roback and Jason Britton: All-Time Bestselling Children's Books. Publishers Weekly , December 17, 2001, accessed February 5, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Who Wrote the Hardy Boys? (English; PDF; 22 kB)
  3. ^ Gene Weingarten: The Hardy Boys Final Chapter. The Washington Post, August 9, 1998, accessed September 13, 2012 : "In 15 volumes we learn little"
  4. ↑ Bayport, New York (English). Retrieved September 13, 2012
  5. ^ Franklin W. Dixon: The House on the Cliff: Hardy Boys 2 (Unabridged) . tape 2 . Imagination Studio, 2002, ISBN 0-8072-0769-1 (American English, original title: The House on the Cliff . Translated by Bill Irwin, audio book).
  6. ↑ The Hardy Boys (English)
  7. ↑ THE HARDY BOYS CASEFILES NANCY DREW AND HARDY BOYS SUPERMYSTERIES (English)
  8. ↑ The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  9. ↑ The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Ghost Farm in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  10. ↑ The Hardy Boys (TV series 1969–1971) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  11. ↑ The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  12. ↑ The Hardy Boys (TV series 1995–1996) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  13. ↑ Video clip from the episode in question on the official South Park homepage
  14. ↑ official website of the game (English)
  15. ↑ Games Academy awards family-friendly games in krone.at, accessed on September 13, 2012
  16. ↑ The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Web links