The Hardy Boys have gone through many permutations over the years. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised, and some commentators find that the Hardys' characters changed in the process. Commentators also sometimes see differences between the Hardy Boys of the original
Hardy Boys Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys of the
Hardy Boys Casefiles or the
Undercover Brothers series.
1927–1959 The early volumes, largely written by
Leslie McFarlane, have been praised for their atmosphere and writing style, qualities often considered lacking in juvenile series books. McFarlane's writing is clear and filled with specific details, making his works superior to many other Stratemeyer series titles. Such, at least, was McFarlane's intention: "It seemed to me the Hardy Boys deserved something better than the slapdash treatment Dave Fearless had been getting... I opted for Quality." The volumes not written by McFarlane or his wife were penned by John Button, who wrote the series from 1938 to 1942; this period is sometimes referred to as the "Weird Period" as the writing is full of inconsistencies and the Hardy Boys' adventures involve futuristic gadgetry and exotic locations. In general, the world of these early volumes is a "[dark] and ... divided place." In these early titles, the boys are cynical about human nature, an attitude apparently justified when the police, whom they have repeatedly helped, throw them into jail on slim evidence in
The Great Airport Mystery (1930). The police and authority figures, in general, come off poorly in these books, so much so that at one point Edward Stratemeyer wrote to McFarlane in order to reprimand him for a "grievous lack of respect for officers of the law." The Hardys are less affluent than earlier Stratemeyer characters; they eagerly accept cash rewards largely to finance college educations, and, with their parents, strive to please their Aunt Gertrude, because she possesses a small fortune. The rich are portrayed as greedy and selfish. This view of the world reflects McFarlane's relative "lack [of] sympathy with the American power structure." In his autobiography, McFarlane described his rationale for writing the books this way, writing: "I had my own thoughts about teaching youngsters that obedience to authority is somehow sacred.... Would civilization crumble if kids got the notion that the people who ran the world were sometimes stupid, occasionally wrong, and even corrupt at times?" It has been a matter of disagreement regarding the treatment of minorities in the books. The early volumes have been called models of diversity for their day, since among the Hardys' friends are Phil Cohen, who is
Jewish, and the
Italian immigrant Tony Prito. These two friends are rarely involved in the Hardys' adventures, however. That level of friendship is reserved for
Biff Hooper and
Chet Morton. The books have been extensively criticized for their use of racial and ethnic stereotypes and their
xenophobia. Vilnoff, for example, the villain in
The Sinister Sign-Post (1936), is described as "swarthy" and "a foreigner", notes critic Steve Burgess. We sense his untrustworthy nature immediately when he sits down beside the boys at a football game and doesn't understand it, despite the boys' best efforts to explain. When he does grasp something, you know it. "I onnerstand pairfectly," he says. Later he adds genially, "I haf you vhere I vant you now!" Can't quite place the accent? It's foreign. Twenty-five chapters are not enough to solve the mystery of his nationality.
African Americans are the targets of much racism, being depicted as unintelligent, lazy, and superstitious, "bumpkin rescuers" at best and "secretive and conspiratorial villains" at worst. Benjamin Lefebvre notes that Harriet Adams at times rebuked Leslie McFarlane for not sufficiently following her instructions regarding the portrayal of African-American characters; he writes that it is not clear "whether Adams rewrote parts of McFarlane's manuscripts to add [racist] details or to what extent these early texts would now be considered even more notoriously racist had McFarlane followed Adams's instructions more carefully." In
Footprints Under the Window (1933), Chinese-American men are portrayed as effeminate threats both to national security and white heteromasculinity.
Native Americans received mixed treatment; those living within the continental United States are portrayed as members of once-noble tribes whose greatness has been diminished by the coming of white men, while those living outside the continental U.S. are "portrayed as uneducated, easily manipulated, or semi-savage." However,
Hispanics are generally treated as equals;
Mexico's history and
culture are treated with respect and admiration.
1959–1979 The
Hardy Boys volumes were extensively revised beginning in 1959 at the insistence of publishers
Grosset & Dunlap, and against the wishes of Harriet Adams. The revision project, which also encompassed the
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, was sparked largely by letters that parents had been writing to Grosset & Dunlap since at least 1948, complaining about the prevalence of racial stereotypes in the books. Volume 14 in the
Hardy Boys series,
The Hidden Harbor Mystery (1935), was singled out for particular and repeated attention for its portrayal of a black criminal who organizes a gang of black boys and treats whites disrespectfully. As one parent put it, the books were "ingraining the old race-riot type of fear." As such letters became more frequent, Grosset & Dunlap informed the Stratemeyer Syndicate that the books must be revised and such stereotypes excised. The result, however, was less the removal of stereotypes than the removal of non-white characters altogether and the creation of an "ethnically cleansed Bayport." By the 1970s, however, the series began to re-introduce black characters. An additional rationale for the revisions was a drop in sales, which became particularly significant by the mid-1960s. Accordingly, the revisions focused on streamlining the texts, as well as eliminating stereotypes. The books were shortened from 25 chapters to 20 and the writing style was made terser. Difficult words such as "ostensible" and "presaged" were eliminated, as was slang. As a result of the new, more streamlined writing style, the books focus more on non-stop action than on building atmosphere, and "prolonged suspense [is] evaporated." The books were also aimed at an increasingly younger audience with shorter attention spans. For this reason, many commentators find the new versions nothing less than "eviscerated", foremost among them being the first
Hardy Boys ghostwriter, Leslie McFarlane, who agreed with a reporter's statement that the books had been "gutted." In the course of revising and modernizing the series, many plots were completely re-written.
The Flickering Torch Mystery (1943), for example, was changed from a plot involving an actual flickering torch used as a signal by a gang to a plot featuring a rock club called "The Flickering Torch." When plots were kept, their more lurid elements were eliminated; Vilnoff, the villain in
The Sinister Sign-Post, was changed from a criminal who compulsively sculpts miniature models of his own hands to a car thief without such eccentricities, and another villain, Pedro Vincenzo, who branded his victims no longer does so in the revised version of
The Mark on the Door (1934, rev. 1967). The books became more respectful of law and authority. Even villains no longer smoked or drank, and scenes involving guns and shoot-outs were compressed or eliminated, in favor of criminals simply giving themselves up. The boys, too, become more respectful of rules and of the law; for example, they no longer drive faster than the speed limit even in pursuit of a villain. The Hardys also became more and more wealthy, prompting the criticism that the "major problem in [these volumes] is that the Hardy Boys have risen above any ability to identify with people like the typical boys who read their books. They are members and agents of the adult ruling class, acting on behalf of that ruling class."
1979–2005 The
Hardy Boys began to be published in paperback in 1979. The Hardys were also featured in two new series, the
Hardy Boys Casefiles and the
Clues Brothers. The latter series, modeled on the
Nancy Drew Notebooks, was aimed at a younger audience, and ran from 1997 to 2000. In contrast, the
Casefiles, begun a decade earlier in 1987, was aimed at an older audience than the
Hardy Boys Mystery Stories. In the new series, the Hardys work with a secret
government organization simply called the "Network", with which they collaborate to "infiltrate organized crime, battle terrorists and track down assassins around the world." The Hardys' personalities are portrayed as more separate and distinct, and they sometimes fight; in the first of the series,
Dead on Target, for example, the brothers brawl after Frank tries to restrain Joe after Joe's girlfriend, Iola Morton, is killed by a
car bomb. In general, the series is more violent, and the Hardy Boys carry various guns; lines like "Joe! Hand me the
Uzi!" are not out of character. Barbara Steiner, a Casefiles ghostwriter, describes a sample plot outline: "I was told that Joe Hardy would get involved with a waitress, a black widow kind of character, and that Joe would get arrested for murder. I was told the emphasis was on high action and suspense and there had to be a cliff-hanger ending to every chapter."
2005 The long-running
Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series ended in 2005 and was replaced with a
reboot series,
The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers. In these volumes, the Hardys' adventures are narrated in the
first person, each brother alternating chapters. This fresh approach to telling the adventures reveals two boys quite foreign to how they have been portrayed before, egotistical and jealous, and longtime readers will find few connections with the boys' previous personalities. The boys'
Aunt Gertrude becomes "Trudy", their mother Laura is given a career as a librarian, and their father is
semi-retired. The boys are given their cases by a secret group known as ATAC, an acronym for American Teens Against Crime. In this new series, the Hardy Boys seem "more like regular kids – who have
lots of wild adventures – in these books, which also deal with issues that kids today might have thought about. For example, the second book in the series,
Running on Fumes, deals with environmentalists who go a little too far to try to save trees." The Hardys are also featured in a new
graphic novel series, begun in 2005 and produced by
Papercutz, and a new early chapter book series called
The Hardy Boys: Secret Files, begun in 2010 by the publisher
Simon & Schuster under their Aladdin imprint. The last
Undercover Brothers books were released in January 2012 (main series) and July 2012 (''Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery '07
series). At the time of cancellation, there was one book that had been announced, but was ultimately shelved (The Case Of The MyFace Kidnapper''); it is unknown whether this was going to be the final title of this unpublished book, since many bookstore websites and Simon & Schuster's website always had the letters "W.T." behind the title, meaning that it was a "
working title". February 2013 saw the launch of
The Hardy Boys Adventures, a series written in the first person. For the first time since 1985, the books are issued in hardcover, along with paperback editions. ==Books==