Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate [Hardcover]

Marilyn S. Greenwald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2004

The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate recounts how a newspaper reporter with dreams of becoming a serious novelist first brought to life Joe and Frank Hardy, who became two of the most famous characters in children’s literature. The author of the Hardy Boys Mysteries was, as millions of readers know, Franklin W. Dixon. Except there never was a Franklin W. Dixon. He was the creation of Edward Stratemeyer, the savvy founder of a children’s book empire that also published the Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, and Nancy Drew series. Embarrassed by his secret identity as the author of the Hardy Boys books, Leslie McFarlane admitted it to no one. His son pried the truth out of him years later. Having signed away all rights to the books, McFarlane never shared in the wild financial success of the series. Far from being bitter, however, late in life McFarlane took satisfaction in having helped introduce millions of children to the joys of reading. Author Marilyn Greenwald gives us the story of McFarlane’s life and career, including for the first time a compelling account of his writing life after the Hardy Boys. A talented and versatile writer, McFarlane adapted to sweeping changes in North American markets for writers, as pulp and glossy magazines made way for films, radio, and television. It is a fascinating and inspiring story of the force of talent and personality transcending narrow limits.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This thorough if lackluster biography charts the career of Leslie McFarlane, who penned the first 16 books of the famous Hardy Boys series under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. In 1926, the enterprising New Jersey book packager Edward Stratemeyer created the series: formulaic fiction strategically marketed to newly leisured adolescent boys. McFarlane, a young journalist in northern Ontario, regarded his ghostwriting as hackwork. He neither sought nor received credit or financial gain proportionate to the series' popularity. A proud Canadian, McFarlane harbored unrealized ambitions to write a Canadian epic novel and found gratification only in publishing his stories in literary magazines. Striving to support a growing family, McFarlane eventually found success in Canadian broadcast writing and directing. A professor of journalism at Ohio University and biographer of Charlotte Curtis (A Woman of the Times), Greenwald writes straightforwardly about the ethnically stereotypical, sex-free world of the Hardy Boys. Although she records debates over the literary value of popular children's fiction, Greenwald concentrates on the business details of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, on McFarlane's professional and family life, and on the lasting influence of his smalltown Canadian childhood. While her study reflects meticulous factual research and will inevitably appeal to Hardy Boys fans, others may be frustrated by the lack here of a thesis about the books' cultural legacy. 33 illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

For this reviewer--and for thousands of other young readers--the discovery that Franklin W. Dixon, author of the Hardy Boys novels, didn't really exist was a blow and a bad one, almost on a par with the unwelcome news that Santa Claus, too, was a fictional character. Now comes the satisfying albeit tardy revelation that, yes, Virginia, there is a Franklin W. Dixon (sort of). In telling the story of Canadian journalist Leslie McFarlane, who wrote the first 16 Hardy Boys novels from outlines supplied by Edward Stratemeyer, Greenwald shows that the success of the series was in large part due to the characters McFarlane created. Critics of contemporary children's literature would never describe Frank and Joe Hardy as quirky characters, but compared with their peers in the series fiction of the time, they were exactly that. Greenwald effectively intercuts McFarlane's biography--the melancholy story of a writer who dreamed of writing the great Canadian novel but created the Hardy Boys instead, for which he was paid a flat fee of about $100 per book--with the more intriguing saga of Edward Stratemeyer, the godfather of series publishing, whose syndicate published the Hardys as well as Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and numerous others. A fascinating slice of publishing history and a lease on life for Franklin W. Dixon fans. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Ohio University Press (July 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821415476
• ISBN-13: 978-0821415474
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,576,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marilyn Greenwald was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has had an interest in journalism and writing for as long as she can remember. She worked on her junior high school newspaper, her high school newspaper, and she was a reporter, columnist and editorial page editor for the Ohio State University Lantern. It was natural for her to spend ten years of her professional career at newspapers. She was a copy editor and entertainment writer at the Telegraph in Painesville, Ohio, and a news and business reporter for the Columbus Citizen-Journal and the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio.

Her career took a different turn in the late 1980s when she began as an assistant professor at the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University; during her first few years there, she developed an interest in studying women in journalism and the portrayal of women in newspapers. As part of a doctoral dissertation at Ohio State University, she began studying the career of Charlotte Curtis, an Ohioan who eventually became the first top female editor at the New York Times. That provided much of the information for her first biography, "A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis," which was published in 1999 and named a Notable Book of the New York Times.

Her second biography in 2004 chronicles the life of Canadian newspaper reporter Leslie McFarlane, who is best known as "Franklin W. Dixon," the man who wrote the first group of Hardy Boys mysteries. McFarlane, who wrote the books in the 1930s and 1940s, earned about $100 per book and signed away all rights to their profits. His books have sold millions and millions of copies over more than 70 years.

Her third biography, "Cleveland Amory: Media Curmudgeon and Animal Rights Crusader," published in May 2009, was born from an interest she developed in graduate school in the lives and persuasion techniques of activists and true believers. Greenwald teaches a class in Review Writing at Ohio University, and has always been interested in arts criticism. So studying the life of Amory -- who was a best-selling author, TV Guide critic and Today show commentator -- provided the perfect opportunity to meld those two interests.

She finds writing biographies to be hard work, but it is also fun and interesting. And she believes that the lives of many accomplished people can be much more complex and fascinating than the lives of most fictional characters.

A professor at Ohio University, Greenwald teaches classes in news reporting, arts criticism, and biography writing (for graduate students). She has three degrees from Ohio State -- a bachelor's and master's degree in Journalism and a Ph.D in Communication, and lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Tim Doulin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Behind THE HARDY BOYS, July 4, 2008

By 

J. A. Eyon "Little Raven" (Seattle - USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Hardcover)

For fans of THE HARDY BOYS, here's an account of the real writer behind the first books of the series. He's Canadian writer Leslie MacFarlane who, in his early struggling years, signed with Edward Stratemeyer's Syndicate to ghostwrite novels for the juvenile market from outlines provided by the syndicate.

MacFarlane worked on more than one series but it's THE HARDY BOYS that grants him a special position in the firmament (however, ambivalent he was about it). He wrote the first ones plus most of the first 30 books and thereby laid the foundation for much of its style and characterization -- even if the plots weren't his, nor the author's name, and altho he only got a small, flat payment in return.

This book details his personal and professional life from childhood to death in 1977. Much seems to come from diaries that he kept as an adult. And some from letters he wrote to his children. While the Hardy Boys is the main motive behind this book, MacFarlane's other work -- his adult stories, his radio and television contributions -- are examined.

Be aware that MacFarlane's life had no excitement to speak of unless you consider the stress of trying to earn income and sustain his family as a freelance writer as exciting. Still, it might be inspiring not just to aspiring writers but to those who are struggling to get by in their lives.

The writing of this biography is unadorned and a bit repetitive -- sometimes, repeating itself within a couple pages. The chronology is often sacrificed as the author ties together events by theme (a not uncommon technique in biographies). Yes I found every page readable and informative.

(For more on the Stratemeyer Syndicate try the lively GIRL SLEUTH: NANCY DREW AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED HER.)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, March 5, 2007

By 

Neil Glasser (Monroe, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Hardcover)

This is a plodding biography that has some decent content on MacFarlane's involvement with the Stratmeyer Syndicate and his authoring of the Hardy Boys. However, there's a lot of tedious material to get through for a few interesting parts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No longer a secret, November 6, 2009

By 

John B. Goode "JBG" (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Secret Of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane & the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Hardcover)

I wasn't aware that Franklin W. Dixon was a cover name until very recently when I looked up the Hardy Boys on the internet and that's when I came across Leslie McFarlane. I can still remember what a big deal the Hardy Boys books were when I was first introduced to them in elementary school. Not just the writing, but the physical book itself, the colorful drawings on the front, the fantastic titles and just the fact they were very sturdy and good looking hardbacks.

So I looked forward to reading this bio with interest. It turns out that only part of this bio has to do with the Hardy Boys as McFarlane had a love hate relationship with it and he was much, much more than just a Hardy Boys ghostwriter. He was a natural and gifted writer and successful not only as a sports and serious writer, but also in magazines, TV, radio, and film documentaries.

If you are purely interested in his work with the Hardy Boys, you can read his autobiography, but if you want to know more about this gifted Canadian (yes, he is Canadian!) storyteller, this is a good book. I highly recommend it to his fans.