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Ghost of the Hardy Boys: The Writer Behind the World’s Most Famous Boy Detectives
“Ghost of the Hardy Boys is an elegant book, full of charm and pathos and whimsy. The writing is restrained, the characterizations deep and rich, the humor nuanced.”—Washington PostAs millions of boys and girls devoured the early adventures of the Hardy Boys, little did the young readers and aspiring sleuths the series’ author was not Franklin W. Dixon, as the cover trumpeted. It was Leslie McFarlane, a nearly penniless scribbler, who hammered out the first adventures while living in a remote cabin without electricity or running water in Northern Ontario. McFarlane was among the first bestselling ghostwriters and this, at last, is his story—as much fun as the stories he wrote.In 1926, 23-year-old cub newspaper reporter Leslie McFarlane responded to an “Experienced Fiction Writer Wanted to Work from Publisher’s Outlines.” The ad was signed by Edward Stratemeyer, whose syndicate effectively invented mass-market children’s book publishing in America. McFarlane, who had a few published adventure stories to his name, was hired and his first job was to write Dave Fearless Under the Ocean as Roy Rockwood—for a flat fee of $100, no royalties. His pay increased to $125 when Stratemeyer proposed a new series of detective stories for kids involving two high school aged brothers who would solve mysteries. The title of the series was The Hardy Boys. McFarlane’s pseudonym would be Franklin W. Dixon. McFarlane went on to write twenty-one Hardy Boys adventures. From The Tower Treasure in 1927 to The Phantom Freighter in 1947, into full-fledged classics filled with perilous scrapes, loyal chums, and breakneck races to solve the mystery. McFarlane kept his ghostwriting gig secret until late in life when his son urged him to share the story of being the real Franklin W. Dixon. By the time McFarlane died in 1977, unofficial sales estimates of The Hardy Boys series already topped 50 million copies. Ghost of the Hardy Boys is a fascinating, funny, and always charming look back at a vanished era of journalism, writing, and book publishing. It is for anyone who loves a great story and who’s curious about solving the mystery of the fascinating man behind one of the most widely read and enduring children’s book series in history.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 14, 2022
7 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Leslie McFarlane
50 books19 followersCharles Leslie McFarlane. who dropped the first forename for his writing career, was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker. McFarlane is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.
The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario. He became a freelance writer shortly after high school. He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario in 1936. This period is described in his 1975 book 'A Kid In Hailebury'.
He was also a reporter for various Canadian and American newspapers. From 1943 to 1957 he was a producer for the National Film Board of Canada in Ottawa.
In 1959/60 he was the Chief Editor for the CBC television drama for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He wrote and directed numerous films and wrote more than 70 plays.
He lived in Whitby from 1936 to 1943 and from 1961 to 1976. He was a member of the Whitby Public School Board and the Whitby Public Library Board in the 1960s, and in 1987 a public school on Garden Street was named after him.
He died in Oshawa on September 6, 1977. His ashes were spread on the Ottawa River.
The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario. He became a freelance writer shortly after high school. He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario in 1936. This period is described in his 1975 book 'A Kid In Hailebury'.
He was also a reporter for various Canadian and American newspapers. From 1943 to 1957 he was a producer for the National Film Board of Canada in Ottawa.
In 1959/60 he was the Chief Editor for the CBC television drama for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He wrote and directed numerous films and wrote more than 70 plays.
He lived in Whitby from 1936 to 1943 and from 1961 to 1976. He was a member of the Whitby Public School Board and the Whitby Public Library Board in the 1960s, and in 1987 a public school on Garden Street was named after him.
He died in Oshawa on September 6, 1977. His ashes were spread on the Ottawa River.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 10, 2022
I never read any Hardy Boys books as a kid and, in fact, read my first one when I was about 40 years old. But I'm always fascinated to discover how authors came to write whatever it is that they wrote, especially when it's an iconic series and the author is relatively unknown. Such is the case with Leslie McFarlane who wrote the original Hardy Boys mysteries based on outlines provided by the Stratemeyer Syndicate (who also created Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, and the Bobbsey Twins among many others). McFarlane wrote twenty-one Hardy Boys books but also had a long career in other writing endeavors including plays, film, and television scripts.
The book does veer off a little too much in the middle when he goes into great detail about his early writing life as a reporter in Canada. This part wasn't so much about him as it was about the newspaper world he inhabited. But even so, McFarlane is such a good storyteller that even this side jaunt was interesting.
This is a humorous autobiography by a guy who can be self-deprecating as well as extremely humble about the success and influence that the Hardy Boys had on young readers. Even in his later years, he considered himself a hack writer at that time, merely a ghost writer who could easily have been replaced by any other hack writer. I'm not so sure I agree.
The book does veer off a little too much in the middle when he goes into great detail about his early writing life as a reporter in Canada. This part wasn't so much about him as it was about the newspaper world he inhabited. But even so, McFarlane is such a good storyteller that even this side jaunt was interesting.
This is a humorous autobiography by a guy who can be self-deprecating as well as extremely humble about the success and influence that the Hardy Boys had on young readers. Even in his later years, he considered himself a hack writer at that time, merely a ghost writer who could easily have been replaced by any other hack writer. I'm not so sure I agree.
April 29, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir by the ghostwriter of many of the Hardy Boys books, Leslie McFarlane. Written in the 1970’s, it’s a look at both his own interesting life in Canada, and a look behind the scenes of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the creators of many children’s series. McFarlane sounds like quite a character!
June 21, 2022
The ghostwriter who hooked millions of boys on reading (early 1900s–1975; Northern Ontario, Canada and Springfield, Massachusetts): How good a sleuth are you?
Did you detect the picture hanging on the wall, spying through the window of the nostalgic cover art of the Ghost of the Hardy Boys, is the cover of the first book in the original mystery series published in 1927, The Tower Treasure? In the spirit of anonymity, the identity of the good sleuth who clued me in shall remain a secret.
Talk about secrets! It took fifty years for “the writer behind the world’s most famous boy detectives” to reveal his identity – Leslie McFarlane aka Franklin W. Dixon – and for most of us another fifty years with the publication of this entertaining and enlightening memoir. First published in 1976, a year before the Canadian ghostwriter died, for most of us it’s likely these are brand new revelations about an indelible slice of Americana.
If you were a Nancy Drew reader, like I was, you too will find the memoir fascinating as both series (and The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Rover Boys, Dana Girls series) were the brainchild of the “sales genius” behind “one of the great merchandising ideas in the history of American publishing”: Edward Stratemeyer. Who? “A Henry Ford for fiction for boys and girls.” Founder of Stratemeyer’s Syndicate. Creator of 800 juvenile books.
Staying within Stratemeyer’s outlines – titles, characters, mystery – McFarlane “hammered out” the original 21 volumes of The Hardy Boys from 1927 to 1947, published by Grosset & Dunlap. His memoir is a treasure trove of early-19th century journalism, and one man’s control and transformation of the children’s book market.
Marilyn S. Greenwald, journalism professor at Ohio University and 2017 author of The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, writes in her Introduction that The Hardy Boys were one of the “most enduring series in the history of young-adult literature.” (For a complete list see: https://hardyboys.us/hbos.htm.)
Via today’s sleuthing tool, you can learn that McFarlane’s fictional series in Bayport, Long Island, New York was “similar” to his hometown in Baileyville, northern Ontario. Ripe for two made-up boy sleuths – Joe and Frank Hardy, whose father Fenton was akin to Sherlock Holmes – yet adventures in some real places like Barmet Bay, Lakeshore Road, and cliffs. “How does one explain the subtle, magnetic attraction of one’s native land?”
Early on, you’ll read about the circumstances that led to McFarlane’s writing the first three Hardy Boys books. Published at the same time, the clever marketing “breeder” strategy meant the reader was apprised in book one that The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill were awaiting. Circling back to the books later, he writes more about the books in the series. A technique he repeats when discussing the remote cabin in the Ontario woods where he wrote all the books after circling back home from America as a reporter for the Springfield Republican.
As of 1975, McFarlane tells us 11 million copies of his books were sold. But he never received name recognition for them, part of his benefactor’s strategy to be in command. Spinning a yarn about Ernest Hemingway, with whom he worked when the two were reporters for the Toronto Star, he warm-heartedly lets us know how he felt about anonymity. “No doubt a Nobel Prize winner feels pretty good when he learns he’s made it, but he can’t feel any more elated than a novice writer who sees his name in print.”
There’s no anger or resentment in McFarlene’s reflections. A “wordsmith” who admired great literature and “fine writing,” he doesn’t feel betrayed by Stratemeyer who paid him a pittance and became a millionaire. The chapter like “A Book is a Book is a Buck” shows he tells it like it was: these books weren’t the “Better Stuff” he aspired to but the reason he was able to eke out a living. “One should be thankful for whatever gift, no matter how small.”
Still wanting to incorporate some “embroidery” into his writing, “opting for Quality,” he created a character fans loved: Aunt Gertrude, his father’s sister. He also understood “you couldn’t go wrong by larding the action with a little funny stuff.” Years later his daughter says he “hated” the books, but in his telling he takes a pragmatic and generous tone.
“Honesty is everything,” the memoirist says, one of the life lessons he sought to instill. Another, a can-do spirit that nothing’s outside of a young person’s reach with enough “patience,” “luck,” and “ability.”
Nostalgia draws you to the memoir. To more “wholesome” times when our youth weren’t exposed to and victims of all the ills of modern society. As seen in his delightful writing and old-fashioned prose like “lads,” “rascals,” “scoundrels, “belly-buster,” “knee-slapper,” “tiddlywinks,” “buffooneries,” “gosh,” and “golly.”
McFarlane’s “comic itch” can be attributed to growing up on silent era comedians like Charlie Chaplain and W. C. Fields, vaudeville, and minstrel shows. That they included “blackface comedians from the American stage” like Amos and Andy brings us to bad nostalgia. Which opens up Pandora’s Box resonating the same racial and ethnic stereotyping complaints in children’s literature still seen today. Numerous websites discuss the racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and derogatory language in the original series.
When Canadian journalist Bob Stall asks him how he felt about his books being “completely rewritten” (beginning in 1959), McFarlane knows they “aren’t the same books” (see here and here). He doesn’t say anything about the offensive prose. Rather, he discusses how “the old books were written for a literate generation,” pre-technology when kids had more time to entertain themselves, including reading versus the dumbing down of makeovers.
How to approach these sensitive issues in reviewing this charming memoir? Look for evidence of inflammatory language based on what’s written in the memoir. This is not a review, then, of the language of the actual Hardy Boys books.
Here’s what I found: McFarlane lived near mining camps and railway towns that attracted immigrants: “Finns, Ukrainians, Russians, Italians, Poles, and French-Canadians.” When he says immigrants need to learn English if they don’t want to be “an object of mirth,” he’s speaking to the importance of a key aspect to assimilation versus anti-immigrant sentiment viewing immigrants as objects of hatred and violence. When you come upon the word Swastika, your hairs stand up until you realize that’s actually the name of a real town in Canada. Why hasn’t the name been changed? When he says, “No popular magazine editor would go for a Good Guy who wasn’t a white man,” it’s a disturbing commentary but historically realistic. The most egregious depictions were his comments on dialogue excerpts a la Keystone Cops poking fun at the police. Not at all funny today, dangerous, though his intention was to show young people that it’s okay to question authority. These days, how we speak about law enforcement necessitates handling with care.
McFarlane’s lamentations on the loss of reams of defunct newspapers, weeklies, and magazines take center stage. He’s nostalgic for the days when you could pick up pulp fiction for a nickel or a dime.
“No ghost is irreplaceable,” he writes. You have to wonder if that’s true since Leslie McFarlane brought his small town boy’s sense of wonderment, adventure, humor, and attachment to a place from his early-20th century childhood into his books.
To Bob Stall, he says about his extensively remade mysteries: “Even a ghost has feelings.”
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
Did you detect the picture hanging on the wall, spying through the window of the nostalgic cover art of the Ghost of the Hardy Boys, is the cover of the first book in the original mystery series published in 1927, The Tower Treasure? In the spirit of anonymity, the identity of the good sleuth who clued me in shall remain a secret.
Talk about secrets! It took fifty years for “the writer behind the world’s most famous boy detectives” to reveal his identity – Leslie McFarlane aka Franklin W. Dixon – and for most of us another fifty years with the publication of this entertaining and enlightening memoir. First published in 1976, a year before the Canadian ghostwriter died, for most of us it’s likely these are brand new revelations about an indelible slice of Americana.
If you were a Nancy Drew reader, like I was, you too will find the memoir fascinating as both series (and The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Rover Boys, Dana Girls series) were the brainchild of the “sales genius” behind “one of the great merchandising ideas in the history of American publishing”: Edward Stratemeyer. Who? “A Henry Ford for fiction for boys and girls.” Founder of Stratemeyer’s Syndicate. Creator of 800 juvenile books.
Staying within Stratemeyer’s outlines – titles, characters, mystery – McFarlane “hammered out” the original 21 volumes of The Hardy Boys from 1927 to 1947, published by Grosset & Dunlap. His memoir is a treasure trove of early-19th century journalism, and one man’s control and transformation of the children’s book market.
Marilyn S. Greenwald, journalism professor at Ohio University and 2017 author of The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, writes in her Introduction that The Hardy Boys were one of the “most enduring series in the history of young-adult literature.” (For a complete list see: https://hardyboys.us/hbos.htm.)
Via today’s sleuthing tool, you can learn that McFarlane’s fictional series in Bayport, Long Island, New York was “similar” to his hometown in Baileyville, northern Ontario. Ripe for two made-up boy sleuths – Joe and Frank Hardy, whose father Fenton was akin to Sherlock Holmes – yet adventures in some real places like Barmet Bay, Lakeshore Road, and cliffs. “How does one explain the subtle, magnetic attraction of one’s native land?”
Early on, you’ll read about the circumstances that led to McFarlane’s writing the first three Hardy Boys books. Published at the same time, the clever marketing “breeder” strategy meant the reader was apprised in book one that The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill were awaiting. Circling back to the books later, he writes more about the books in the series. A technique he repeats when discussing the remote cabin in the Ontario woods where he wrote all the books after circling back home from America as a reporter for the Springfield Republican.
As of 1975, McFarlane tells us 11 million copies of his books were sold. But he never received name recognition for them, part of his benefactor’s strategy to be in command. Spinning a yarn about Ernest Hemingway, with whom he worked when the two were reporters for the Toronto Star, he warm-heartedly lets us know how he felt about anonymity. “No doubt a Nobel Prize winner feels pretty good when he learns he’s made it, but he can’t feel any more elated than a novice writer who sees his name in print.”
There’s no anger or resentment in McFarlene’s reflections. A “wordsmith” who admired great literature and “fine writing,” he doesn’t feel betrayed by Stratemeyer who paid him a pittance and became a millionaire. The chapter like “A Book is a Book is a Buck” shows he tells it like it was: these books weren’t the “Better Stuff” he aspired to but the reason he was able to eke out a living. “One should be thankful for whatever gift, no matter how small.”
Still wanting to incorporate some “embroidery” into his writing, “opting for Quality,” he created a character fans loved: Aunt Gertrude, his father’s sister. He also understood “you couldn’t go wrong by larding the action with a little funny stuff.” Years later his daughter says he “hated” the books, but in his telling he takes a pragmatic and generous tone.
“Honesty is everything,” the memoirist says, one of the life lessons he sought to instill. Another, a can-do spirit that nothing’s outside of a young person’s reach with enough “patience,” “luck,” and “ability.”
Nostalgia draws you to the memoir. To more “wholesome” times when our youth weren’t exposed to and victims of all the ills of modern society. As seen in his delightful writing and old-fashioned prose like “lads,” “rascals,” “scoundrels, “belly-buster,” “knee-slapper,” “tiddlywinks,” “buffooneries,” “gosh,” and “golly.”
McFarlane’s “comic itch” can be attributed to growing up on silent era comedians like Charlie Chaplain and W. C. Fields, vaudeville, and minstrel shows. That they included “blackface comedians from the American stage” like Amos and Andy brings us to bad nostalgia. Which opens up Pandora’s Box resonating the same racial and ethnic stereotyping complaints in children’s literature still seen today. Numerous websites discuss the racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and derogatory language in the original series.
When Canadian journalist Bob Stall asks him how he felt about his books being “completely rewritten” (beginning in 1959), McFarlane knows they “aren’t the same books” (see here and here). He doesn’t say anything about the offensive prose. Rather, he discusses how “the old books were written for a literate generation,” pre-technology when kids had more time to entertain themselves, including reading versus the dumbing down of makeovers.
How to approach these sensitive issues in reviewing this charming memoir? Look for evidence of inflammatory language based on what’s written in the memoir. This is not a review, then, of the language of the actual Hardy Boys books.
Here’s what I found: McFarlane lived near mining camps and railway towns that attracted immigrants: “Finns, Ukrainians, Russians, Italians, Poles, and French-Canadians.” When he says immigrants need to learn English if they don’t want to be “an object of mirth,” he’s speaking to the importance of a key aspect to assimilation versus anti-immigrant sentiment viewing immigrants as objects of hatred and violence. When you come upon the word Swastika, your hairs stand up until you realize that’s actually the name of a real town in Canada. Why hasn’t the name been changed? When he says, “No popular magazine editor would go for a Good Guy who wasn’t a white man,” it’s a disturbing commentary but historically realistic. The most egregious depictions were his comments on dialogue excerpts a la Keystone Cops poking fun at the police. Not at all funny today, dangerous, though his intention was to show young people that it’s okay to question authority. These days, how we speak about law enforcement necessitates handling with care.
McFarlane’s lamentations on the loss of reams of defunct newspapers, weeklies, and magazines take center stage. He’s nostalgic for the days when you could pick up pulp fiction for a nickel or a dime.
“No ghost is irreplaceable,” he writes. You have to wonder if that’s true since Leslie McFarlane brought his small town boy’s sense of wonderment, adventure, humor, and attachment to a place from his early-20th century childhood into his books.
To Bob Stall, he says about his extensively remade mysteries: “Even a ghost has feelings.”
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
June 21, 2022
Godine Press has just re-issued this 1976 memoir by Leslie McFarlane. He was the author of 21 Hardy Boys books from 1927 to 1947. He was the ghost writer. They were published under the name "Franklin W. Dixon".
The books were owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. They would send him a plot outline and he would write the book. He got $85 a book. It eventually went up to $100 a book. He got paid a little over $2,000 over 20 years. The syndicate made millions and is still selling thousands of copies of revised editions of his books. He insisted he was not bitter. A deal is a deal.
These days most memoirs are stories of hardship, abuse and/or addiction. They are advertised as "moving", "brutal" and/or "painfully honest". This is a memoir from an earlier time when memoirs were sold as "heartwarming", "charming" or "lively".
McFarlane describes growing up in Western Canada. he starts work as a newspaperman right out of High School. He tells good stories about small town reporting. Murder trials, mine explosions and traveling vaudeville shows are the big beats.
He describes how he got involved with the Syndicate. He makes no pretense that his books were well written or significant. He tried to write good solid stories and took some pride in being a professional writer. He makes it clear that the stories were formulaic and the plots were silly.
We get very little about his personal life. He mentions a wife and children. He had a career writing for television in Canada which he does not discuss.
This is a good description of the life of a ghost writer.
Godine Press takes pride in the appearance of its books. This is cleverly presented to echo the hardcover Hardy Boys books. The binding and cover illustrations are spot on.
FOOTPRINTS UNDER THE WINDOW **
By coincidence I saw this 1933 Hardy Boys book on the $3 table at Brattle Books just after I read the above memoir. It is one of the books which McFarlane wrote.
McFarlane was correct. The plot is silly. The characters are one dimensional. The dialog is stilted and the writing is simple.
McFarlane did not mention the casual racism, probably because it never occurred to him. On page 5 the boys go into a laundry and see "a Chinaman, deep and diabolical" who says things like "no likee" and "Boat velly hot". On page 51 we get an Irish policeman, Con Reilly, who "was so thick-headed'" that he was "the despair of his superiors."
O, the good old days.
The books were owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. They would send him a plot outline and he would write the book. He got $85 a book. It eventually went up to $100 a book. He got paid a little over $2,000 over 20 years. The syndicate made millions and is still selling thousands of copies of revised editions of his books. He insisted he was not bitter. A deal is a deal.
These days most memoirs are stories of hardship, abuse and/or addiction. They are advertised as "moving", "brutal" and/or "painfully honest". This is a memoir from an earlier time when memoirs were sold as "heartwarming", "charming" or "lively".
McFarlane describes growing up in Western Canada. he starts work as a newspaperman right out of High School. He tells good stories about small town reporting. Murder trials, mine explosions and traveling vaudeville shows are the big beats.
He describes how he got involved with the Syndicate. He makes no pretense that his books were well written or significant. He tried to write good solid stories and took some pride in being a professional writer. He makes it clear that the stories were formulaic and the plots were silly.
We get very little about his personal life. He mentions a wife and children. He had a career writing for television in Canada which he does not discuss.
This is a good description of the life of a ghost writer.
Godine Press takes pride in the appearance of its books. This is cleverly presented to echo the hardcover Hardy Boys books. The binding and cover illustrations are spot on.
FOOTPRINTS UNDER THE WINDOW **
By coincidence I saw this 1933 Hardy Boys book on the $3 table at Brattle Books just after I read the above memoir. It is one of the books which McFarlane wrote.
McFarlane was correct. The plot is silly. The characters are one dimensional. The dialog is stilted and the writing is simple.
McFarlane did not mention the casual racism, probably because it never occurred to him. On page 5 the boys go into a laundry and see "a Chinaman, deep and diabolical" who says things like "no likee" and "Boat velly hot". On page 51 we get an Irish policeman, Con Reilly, who "was so thick-headed'" that he was "the despair of his superiors."
O, the good old days.
April 5, 2024
If you grew up reading the Hardy Boys adventures like I did, you will probably be interested in this autobiography. It’s about the man who was the author behind the first fifteen Hardy Boys novels. You may already know that Franklin W. Dixon was a corporate penname, one of sixty-odd such names developed by Edward Stratemeyer as part of his Stratemeyer syndicate—a book publishing assembly line that produced such iconic books as Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. Stratemeyer provided ghost writers with outlines and a $100 check and they wrote the books for him leaving all rights to the syndicate.
Leslie McFarlane was a Canadian author who wrote dozens of books for Stratemeyer over the years. About half of this autobiography provides really interesting insight into those books and series and how the syndicate worked. The other half is about McFarlane’s life. It isn’t without interest, but it’s not why I read the novel. I wanted insight into those early Hardy Boys novels. And while the books he describes are very familiar in feel, they aren’t quite the books that you probably read as a child. That’s because in the 1960s the syndicate updated all the books in the series to make them feel more modern. They also took out what sounded like absolutely wonderful elements in the original series.
For example, did you know that Detective Smuff, long time bungling detective striving to get on the Bayport police force, was originally a Bayport cop? McFarlane made Chief Collig and him look like Keystone Cops but apparently, the syndicate came to the conclusion that it was subversive to make the police look incompetent so that the boy detectives could shine.
Here’s another example. Aunt Gertrude used to be a lot more bossy and yell at the brothers when they got into danger. She still did worry and warn them in the series I read, but it was apparently totally over the top in the original books and it made her one of the most beloved figures in boys’ fiction. That yelling said “I love you” in ways that the readers could accept without feeling like the books hadn’t gotten all mushy on them.
I loved this series growing up and I’ve been enjoying rereading them as an adult. But I have to admit, many of them could have used the humor that McFarlane says he included. And I think it would have been wise to keep the original Aunt Gertrude too.
Leslie McFarlane was a Canadian author who wrote dozens of books for Stratemeyer over the years. About half of this autobiography provides really interesting insight into those books and series and how the syndicate worked. The other half is about McFarlane’s life. It isn’t without interest, but it’s not why I read the novel. I wanted insight into those early Hardy Boys novels. And while the books he describes are very familiar in feel, they aren’t quite the books that you probably read as a child. That’s because in the 1960s the syndicate updated all the books in the series to make them feel more modern. They also took out what sounded like absolutely wonderful elements in the original series.
For example, did you know that Detective Smuff, long time bungling detective striving to get on the Bayport police force, was originally a Bayport cop? McFarlane made Chief Collig and him look like Keystone Cops but apparently, the syndicate came to the conclusion that it was subversive to make the police look incompetent so that the boy detectives could shine.
Here’s another example. Aunt Gertrude used to be a lot more bossy and yell at the brothers when they got into danger. She still did worry and warn them in the series I read, but it was apparently totally over the top in the original books and it made her one of the most beloved figures in boys’ fiction. That yelling said “I love you” in ways that the readers could accept without feeling like the books hadn’t gotten all mushy on them.
I loved this series growing up and I’ve been enjoying rereading them as an adult. But I have to admit, many of them could have used the humor that McFarlane says he included. And I think it would have been wise to keep the original Aunt Gertrude too.
August 23, 2024
To his credit, Mr. McFarlane knows why people are reading his memoir - to find out about the behind the scenes of the Hardy Boys. This knowledge is to his credit, because as his memoir unfolds, we discover that though he is most well-known for writing 20 odd Hardy Boys books, he wrote much much more than that. His time with the Hardy Boys was relatively short, compared to the rest of his life, but he is known for writing the Hardy Boys. Additionally, he had little emotional investment with the Hardy Boys, yet that is all people wanted to talk to him about. I imagine this is the same problem that many artists face when they gain fame for one song, book, movie, painting, etc, and become burdened by that work and can't distance themselves from it.
Mr. McFarlane seems to have made peace with that, and while I applaud him, it also saddens me. The sadness didn't hit me until the very last chapter, but in considering the whole of the book, I realized Mr. McFarlane spent 3/4s of the memoir writing about a 10 year period of his life. That time period was 40 years before he wrote his memoir, which means he skimmed over the most productive 30 year period of his life. Again, Mr. McFarlane knew why people were reading his memoirs, and he graciously gave the people what they wanted.
This book is humorous. The humor is the real draw, in fact. It's of historical interest to learn about the 20s in North America, and it's fascinating to read about publishing in that time period, but his wit and humor drive the book.
In the end, I unexpectedly left the book sad. I felt for Mr. McFarlane, though I doubt he wanted sadness felt on his behalf. It sounded like he had a happy life doing what he loved to do, and he is to be applauded for working hard building a career as a writer. This memoir is a bit unusual in that he details plot points of numerous books, and he occasionally gets hung up on something he wrote, convinced it's hilarious, but overall this book is worth reading for the warmth and wit that Mr. McFarlane delivers.
Mr. McFarlane seems to have made peace with that, and while I applaud him, it also saddens me. The sadness didn't hit me until the very last chapter, but in considering the whole of the book, I realized Mr. McFarlane spent 3/4s of the memoir writing about a 10 year period of his life. That time period was 40 years before he wrote his memoir, which means he skimmed over the most productive 30 year period of his life. Again, Mr. McFarlane knew why people were reading his memoirs, and he graciously gave the people what they wanted.
This book is humorous. The humor is the real draw, in fact. It's of historical interest to learn about the 20s in North America, and it's fascinating to read about publishing in that time period, but his wit and humor drive the book.
In the end, I unexpectedly left the book sad. I felt for Mr. McFarlane, though I doubt he wanted sadness felt on his behalf. It sounded like he had a happy life doing what he loved to do, and he is to be applauded for working hard building a career as a writer. This memoir is a bit unusual in that he details plot points of numerous books, and he occasionally gets hung up on something he wrote, convinced it's hilarious, but overall this book is worth reading for the warmth and wit that Mr. McFarlane delivers.
March 12, 2023
Ah, to refresh those old memories of childhood! Many of us would have grown up reading stories of the Hardy Boys; these books were like an introduction to me to the world of stories (along with The Three Investigators ). It was ages before I learnt that there is no Franklin W. Dixon, that in fact there are multiple authors using the same pen name as they churn out one book after the other. This knowledge took me by surprise. But now I feel I finally met the man who for me was the real Franklin W. Dixon, the author who started the wonderful adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy and gave so many youngsters many hours of joyful reading.
Leslie McFarlane in his memoirs talks about his initial newspaper days where he used to run around for stories worth printing. He then stumbles onto the concept of “syndicate” writing for a publication which he finds commercially lucrative and it also allows him to fulfil a desire to tell stories. When the previous series ends, McFarlane is offered a brief synopsis to turn into a novel that involves two young brothers who spend their time outside school solving local crimes. McFarlane this time decides to add more heart to the story, and elevate the quality of the narrative. And that is where the journey begins of the series that would eventually sell millions of copies around the world. McFarlane’s memoirs talk about more than just Hardy Boys - he talks about the literature prevalent during his time that was popular, the authors whom he admired, the stories that were loved by the audience. His book is filled with literary fun facts, a good amount of humour here and there, and a lot of soul. This would bring joy to anyone who’s grown up with the Hardy Boys!
Leslie McFarlane in his memoirs talks about his initial newspaper days where he used to run around for stories worth printing. He then stumbles onto the concept of “syndicate” writing for a publication which he finds commercially lucrative and it also allows him to fulfil a desire to tell stories. When the previous series ends, McFarlane is offered a brief synopsis to turn into a novel that involves two young brothers who spend their time outside school solving local crimes. McFarlane this time decides to add more heart to the story, and elevate the quality of the narrative. And that is where the journey begins of the series that would eventually sell millions of copies around the world. McFarlane’s memoirs talk about more than just Hardy Boys - he talks about the literature prevalent during his time that was popular, the authors whom he admired, the stories that were loved by the audience. His book is filled with literary fun facts, a good amount of humour here and there, and a lot of soul. This would bring joy to anyone who’s grown up with the Hardy Boys!
September 28, 2023
As a young lad, like every boy (I imagine) in my age group, I read the Hardy Boys voraciously, finishing all 58 of the canon books by the time I entered middle school. I even owned and read "The Hardy Boys Casebook." (I also read nearly all of the Nancy Drew books, a handful of Tom Swift when I could find them, one or two Bobbsy Twins which I hated, and even a Christopher Cool Teen Agent book.) I recently gifted my 10-year-old nephew a box set of the first six volumes, to which he shrugged indifferently. Oh, well.
Of course, these were the re-writen manuscripts. My chum Andy's father owned some of the original 25 chapter / 200+ page Hardy Boys, and I could tell the difference in tone and style, often prefering the older books, even with the out-of-date references.
Leslie McFarlane was the author of the first several, and about half of the original, Hardy Boys stories. At least, he wrote the words (as he says).
I really enjoyed this autobiography, written in 1976 just before McFarlane's death the following year. I am not sure why it was reprinted in 2022, but am thankful it was as it put it in the New section of the bookstore where I found it.
McFarlane's autobiography is condensed, focused, and often hysterical. He comes across, and I believe it to be true, as a very humble writer, often emphasizing that he "wrote the words" based on detailed outlines he received from Stratemeyer. Based on this, I have a desire now to reread some of the original Hardy Boys books, though I know they will be difficult to find today.
Recommended. Four stars.
Of course, these were the re-writen manuscripts. My chum Andy's father owned some of the original 25 chapter / 200+ page Hardy Boys, and I could tell the difference in tone and style, often prefering the older books, even with the out-of-date references.
Leslie McFarlane was the author of the first several, and about half of the original, Hardy Boys stories. At least, he wrote the words (as he says).
I really enjoyed this autobiography, written in 1976 just before McFarlane's death the following year. I am not sure why it was reprinted in 2022, but am thankful it was as it put it in the New section of the bookstore where I found it.
McFarlane's autobiography is condensed, focused, and often hysterical. He comes across, and I believe it to be true, as a very humble writer, often emphasizing that he "wrote the words" based on detailed outlines he received from Stratemeyer. Based on this, I have a desire now to reread some of the original Hardy Boys books, though I know they will be difficult to find today.
Recommended. Four stars.
January 22, 2023
It is impossible to praise this wonderful book too highly. The entertaining memoir of the ghost writer for most of the first two dozen of the original Hardy Boys series checks many boxes. For the general reader it is a fascinating personal story combined with insightful social history of the 1920’s told with wit and humor. For anyone like myself who actually read and loved the originals as a kid or is interested in the history of juvenile series books it is an indispensable gold mine. Leslie McFarlane, a young and struggling freelance writer, knew he was undertaking anonymous hack work when hired to write the Hardy Boys under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon, but he decided to make sure it was a quality job nevertheless. Generations of readers owe him much for all the hours of pleasure and fond memories. Although the author had a successful career as a writer for magazines, radio, and television, he modestly claims he was not talented. I disagree. Like the original version of the Hardy Boys, this book is a page turner all the way through. Thank you Mr. McFarlane.
June 19, 2023
Technically, this is a 3.5 for me. McFarlane goes into a little too much detail about the plots/characters/dialogue in his own books and those of others, which distracts from the details I really wanted to hear about - his life and experience as a journalist-turned-author. I was turned on to this book by reading an article by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post, finding out that Franklin W. Dixon is just a named used by various ghostwriters in the Hardy Boys series (and many other series too, as it turns out). McFarlane used the book-writing to support his family, but it was not his first love, it was mindless grunt work. He was a talented writer, and this memoir proved that, but he definitely was wordy and it took me a minute to get through what I thought was going to be an easy read!
"Writers are not good husband material...not because they are worse characters than men of other occupations. They aren't. Not because they are impractical and untidy. They are. Not because their income is chancy. It is. But they are always underfoot."
"Writers are not good husband material...not because they are worse characters than men of other occupations. They aren't. Not because they are impractical and untidy. They are. Not because their income is chancy. It is. But they are always underfoot."
January 18, 2025
This book felt like it was made for me. The author was the initial ghost writer for the Hardy Boys series and he talks about the ins and outs of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and huge team of authors. He also reminisces about his own experiences reading books like that.
I grew up reading Horatio Alger books, Rover Boys, Hardy Boys, Bomba the Jungle Boy, Tom Swift, etc. and am very familiar with this era, genre, titles, series and authors so it was a really fun romp and I knew exactly what he was talking about most of the time.
Best of all, he was really, really funny. A subdued, wry, self-deprecating sort of wit that constantly had me chuckling.
He was raised in a staunch Presbyterian home but was pretty anti-religion toward the end of his life so that colors a few portions of the book.
I grew up reading Horatio Alger books, Rover Boys, Hardy Boys, Bomba the Jungle Boy, Tom Swift, etc. and am very familiar with this era, genre, titles, series and authors so it was a really fun romp and I knew exactly what he was talking about most of the time.
Best of all, he was really, really funny. A subdued, wry, self-deprecating sort of wit that constantly had me chuckling.
He was raised in a staunch Presbyterian home but was pretty anti-religion toward the end of his life so that colors a few portions of the book.
April 9, 2025
Full review here:
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
While that review ends with "I'm kind of needle dropping here, because there's a hell of a lot in the book that really deserves discussion that I really just don't have the energy to explore here. I will say I highly recommend reading this to anyone who got sucked into one of the Syndicate series," I forgot to point out how much McFarlane's non-Hardy fiction prose reminds me of Nathan Leopold's exposition, as well as a bit of Ambrose Bierce. I assume if I read Horatio Alger Jr.'s stuff, it would have a similar patter.
https://jamesgenrebooks.blogspot.com/...
While that review ends with "I'm kind of needle dropping here, because there's a hell of a lot in the book that really deserves discussion that I really just don't have the energy to explore here. I will say I highly recommend reading this to anyone who got sucked into one of the Syndicate series," I forgot to point out how much McFarlane's non-Hardy fiction prose reminds me of Nathan Leopold's exposition, as well as a bit of Ambrose Bierce. I assume if I read Horatio Alger Jr.'s stuff, it would have a similar patter.
October 2, 2022
Autobiography by the man who was the original "Franklin W. Dixon," ghostwriter of the first twenty-some books in the series. Because of this, he can be credited by creating the "characters" of the characters in the original versions of the books. In a way, it was all an accident — he answered an advertisement, and the rest was history. This book provides a fascinating look at the history and background of books written for children, and what made the series books produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate so popular.
September 12, 2023
Decent if scattershot account of the Canadian ghostwriter of the early Franklin W. Dixon Hardy Boy books in the 20's and 30's, though I'd guess only about a third of the book actually concerns that process (essentially he got a set fee of a couple of hundred bucks for each book and if he is to be believed, had no real idea that they were the bestselling children's fiction of its era). The rest of the book is about life as a newspaper and freelance writer in mostly rural Canada, which I found hit or miss in terms of reader interest.
November 21, 2022
Very entertaining. Interesting insight to ghostwriting and the development of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and overall history of juvenile fiction in the early/mid 20th century. Loved the humor, wit, and details of living in Canada in the 1920s plus the struggle of making a career as a writer in that era. Far more than the origin of the Hardy Boys books. McFarlane wrote 21 of the Hardy Boys stories.
January 20, 2024
As someone who read all the Hardy Boys books our elementary school library had as a kid, I enjoyed this memoir by the original ghostwriter. He was not what I expected (and some parts dragged a bit), but it was a very interesting read. I did not realize how old the books were, nor that the original author was Canadian.
November 8, 2023
Maybe my expectations were off, but for a book titled Ghost of the Hardy Boys, they really were ghosts in this. Really hoped to hear more on the process, and the authors thoughts on the rewrites of his stories. He spent most of the book talking about rural Canada and his newspaper days.
July 25, 2025
A fun memoir of the first “author” I ever knew… Franklin W. Dixon
September 10, 2022
Insightful and humorous Leslie McFarlane sounds like someone I would've liked to meet. His writing is easy going, detailed without going overboard and funny in just the right places. His recounts of situations in his life are interesting. From perils living in a cold northern Canadian home to the intricacies of writing the Hardy Boys books from outlines provided for him. Some would call him a hack but he seemed fine with doing whatever to make some money and work as a writer. He wasn't bitter about not getting paid enough or feeling ripped off by Mr. Stratemeyer. He accepted the terms when he was hired to be a ghostwriter and knew what he was getting into....he just didn't know the extent of popularity the books would bring throughout the years. He just seemed to love to write. He tells about working at various newspapers, gives us an inside look at Stratemeyer's operation and paints a picture of northern Canada that makes it sound wonderous. I enjoyed learning about the man who wrote the books I enjoyed as a child (and re-read as an adult).
October 23, 2023
I read some of the Hardy Boy mysteries when I was a child in the early 1960s. By then, although I didn’t realize it and wouldn’t have cared if I had, the books were forty years old but had not yet undergone their modernization. By the time the animated and film versions were televised I had outgrown what today might be called young adult fiction.
This book was originally published in 1976, the year before the author died, aged seventy-five. So it was an interesting sensation for me to feel nostalgic about a work that was in turn nostalgic for an even earlier past. Actually the author was not nostalgic at all. He considered himself a poorly paid writer in a genre he did not respect. But he was not resentful. The royalties, actually a single payment upon the publisher’s receipt of a manuscript, allowed his family to survive the Great Depression. He did not see the work as requiring talent and he knew he was easily replaceable.
One recurring theme is about the absence of sex or libido from the books. McFarlane resented but did not rebel against the mores of his time. It left me wondering if he may have ghost written pornography too. The foreword for this edition is by Marilyn S. Greenwald, author of "The Secret of the Hardy Boys," a biography of Leslie McFarlane. Perhaps reading that volume would provide a deeper dive into his life. But I consider this memoir well written and he did abandon three earlier attempts at it. He seems fairly unequivocal and forthright about his life and writing. Greenwald’s biography is pretty far down on my list of books to read at this time.
A couple of interesting observations I made on style were his occasional use of archaic words such as guedon and tosspot, and the reticulated structure of the story, similar to long and short versions of the creation story in the Book of Genesis, that is he starts with the lead up to his first Hardy Boys book, then doubles back after several chapters and tells his whole life story in greater detail. He also recounts the history of children’s books series and their most prolific authors such as Horatio Alger, Jr.
This book was originally published in 1976, the year before the author died, aged seventy-five. So it was an interesting sensation for me to feel nostalgic about a work that was in turn nostalgic for an even earlier past. Actually the author was not nostalgic at all. He considered himself a poorly paid writer in a genre he did not respect. But he was not resentful. The royalties, actually a single payment upon the publisher’s receipt of a manuscript, allowed his family to survive the Great Depression. He did not see the work as requiring talent and he knew he was easily replaceable.
One recurring theme is about the absence of sex or libido from the books. McFarlane resented but did not rebel against the mores of his time. It left me wondering if he may have ghost written pornography too. The foreword for this edition is by Marilyn S. Greenwald, author of "The Secret of the Hardy Boys," a biography of Leslie McFarlane. Perhaps reading that volume would provide a deeper dive into his life. But I consider this memoir well written and he did abandon three earlier attempts at it. He seems fairly unequivocal and forthright about his life and writing. Greenwald’s biography is pretty far down on my list of books to read at this time.
A couple of interesting observations I made on style were his occasional use of archaic words such as guedon and tosspot, and the reticulated structure of the story, similar to long and short versions of the creation story in the Book of Genesis, that is he starts with the lead up to his first Hardy Boys book, then doubles back after several chapters and tells his whole life story in greater detail. He also recounts the history of children’s books series and their most prolific authors such as Horatio Alger, Jr.
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