The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys and Others

by Michael G. Cornelius (Editor)

Much has been written about the girl sleuth in fiction, a feminist figure embodying all the potential wit and drive of girlhood. Her male counterpart, however, has received much less critical attention despite his popularity in the wider culture. This collection of 11 essays examines the boy detective and his genre from a number of critical perspectives, addressing the issues of these young characters, heirs to the patriarchy yet still concerned with first crushes and soda shop romances. Series explored include the Hardy Boys, Tow Swift, the Three Investigators, Christopher Cool and Tim Murphy, as well as works by Astrid Lindgren, Mark Haddon and Joe Meno.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2010

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Boy Detectives is a collection of essays edited by Michael G. Cornelius that examine the boy detective genre. The first four essays are dedicated to the Hardy Boys, while the remainder deal with other boy detectives from Tom Swift to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Introduction by Michael G. Cornelius

Reading the introduction almost made me give up on the book before I started. It’s longer than several of the essays and really longwinded. Cornelius had some interesting things to say about the significance of boy detectives’ names, but his observations would have been better in an essay. 2 stars

A Hardy Boys’ Identity Narrative and The Tower Treasure by Larry T. Shillock

This one was basically a Freudian rehash of the first Hardy Boys book. It provided some unintentional amusement when Shillock called a pair of water towers “the personified and eroticized source of moisture” (32) and pointed out “their implied vulgar Freudianisms” (33). 2.5 stars

Hardy Camaraderie: Boy Sleuthing and Male Community in the Hardy Boys Mysteries by C. M. Gill

This essay was what made me decide to keep reading the book. I don’t entirely agree with Gill’s conclusions, but it’s a fascinating look at gender and gender roles in the Hardy Boys books. 3.5 stars

Terminal Immaterial: The Uncertain Subject of the Hardy Boys Airport Mysteries by Christopher Schaberg

The airport as metaphor. Schaberg provoked a bit of eye rolling when he started comparing a short line about the Hardys ducking into a Metro station to an Ezra Pound poem. 2.5 stars

Strategies of Adaptation: The Hardy Boys on Television by Brian Taves

An informative, but not very exciting, survey of the Hardys’ various TV incarnations. 3 stars

Natural Detective Work: Ideas About Nature in the Early Tom Swift Books by Elizabeth D. Bloom

This was the worst essay in the book. Bloom basically criticized the Tom Swift books because they showed an early 20th century worldview rather than an early 21st century view. I actually screamed a little when I read a line about smokestacks welcoming Tom “rather than provid[ing] a way to discuss the evils of smoke pollution” (93). 1.5 stars

Tim Murphy: Superhero Without a Cape by Fred Erisman
A very good essay on detective Tim Murphy as a proto-superhero. 4 stars

Adventures and Affect: The Character of the Boy Detective and Orphan in Astrid Lindgren’s Rasmus and the Tramp by Charlotte Beyer

A clear and concise essay. It had added interest by virtue of the fact it is the only essay in the book to deal with a non-English language book. 4 stars

The Power of Three: Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators Series by Alan Pickrell

The first few pages of this essay read like a numerology book. Pickrell got a little sidetracked on occasion, but it turned into a solid essay. 3 stars

Clashing Genres: (No) Sex and (No) Violence in the Christopher Cool, TEEN Agent Series by Michael G. Cornelius

Fortunately, Cornelius is better at writing essays than he is at writing introductions. This one examines how the Christopher Cool series, while trying to be both, failed at being a boy detective series and a spy series. 4 stars

“The Perfect Hero for His Age”: Christopher Boone and the Role of Logic in the Boy Detective Narrative by Nicola Allen

Basically all I have to say about this one is that it is exactly what its title says it is and that it is very well done. 4 stars

Has the World Outgrown the Classic Boy Detective? By John Finlay Kerr

Kerr’s tone made me believe that he has little respect for the genre he is writing about. He writes that the thrills in boy detective novels are “tame and nominal dangers, the literary equivalent of trained tigers” (182), and while I can’t exactly argue with the first part of the statement, I can’t help but wonder why he decided to compare them to trained tigers; even when they are trained, tigers are still dangerous creatures. He also included a lot of notes that either could have been worked into the essay or, in most cases, left out altogether. 2 stars

I wouldn’t recommend The Boy Detectives for casual reading, but it is an invaluable reference tool for any who are interested in the genre.

Received via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[Nathanael Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of essays dealing with boy detective fiction, primarily of the early-twentieth century—and primarily with the Hardy Boys (of the eleven essays, four deal exclusively with the Hardy Boys and the final essay includes them in its survey of modern boy detectives). The essays are all highly interesting, though the level of interest may depend on familiarity with/interest in the source material (I found the chapters on Tom Swift and Tim Murphey slow going, but the other sleuths—Christopher Cool, the Three Investigators—were also unfamiliar to me, and the essays still proved to be interesting and informative). There is a certain amount of over-reliance on Freud here and there—one would think such an approach would be outdated in contemporary literary criticism—but the essay that uses Freud most heavily—Shillock’s write-up of The Tower Treasure—manages to make its case very convincingly indeed. The last essay in the book is perhaps the best: “Has the World Outgrown the Classic Boy Detective?” asks John Finlay Kerr. The author looks at different modern versions of the boy detective, including Mark Haddon’s Christopher Boone and the protagonist of The Boy Detective Fails, as well as the newly-revamped Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers (or, as Kerr puzzlingly has it, Brothers Undercover) to see how the Boy Detective is approached in contemporary writing. In all, this book makes for an informative and frequently thrilling look at an iconic figure in juvenile literature.

[Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are very few collections of essays examining the Boy Detective genre, exemplified most famously by the Hardy Boys. In fact this may be the only one! Consisting of eleven essays by academic writers, plus an introduction by the editor Michael G. Cornelius, the collection focuses on the The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators Series and half a dozen others.[return][return]Virtually created out of whole cloth by Edward Stratemeyer, the boy sleuth genre seems to have derived from the works of Horatio Alger. Stratemeyer wrote more than 1300 books himself, selling in excess of 500 million copies, and created many fictional series including The Rover Boys (1899), Tom Swift (starting in 1910), The Hardy Boys (starting in 1927) series, among others.[return][return]Several of these essays stand out. Elizabeth D. Blum’s essay on Nature in the Early Tom Swift Stories is exceptional. Alan Pickerall writes about Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators series — a run of 43 titles from 1964 until 1987. John Finlay Kerr’s final essay asks whether the world has outgrown the classic boy detective story and while his well-reasoned answer is undoubtedly yes, it appears that the contemporary version of the boy detective will continue to develop and embrace the social landscape of contemporary life.

[Stuart Lutzenhiser · Rating 1 out of 5]

As with any set of essays on a common subject, some of the essays are better than others. Or rather, they each have different strengths and weaknesses. Some of them are spot on topic (the Hardy boys or other boy detective series from the 1st half of the 20th century) and some range further afield (Harry Potter, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, and others). Some are fairly straightforward, setting out a premise and then supporting it and then summarizing at the end; while others range about a bit, sometimes seeming to be near making a point and not quite getting there.

This is similar to the "Philosophy of..." series (I read the one on the Simpsons, which was quite good) in that it contains articles written by scholars for the edification of other scholars or similar enthusiasts. I didn't really know that in the whole world of unexplored subjects that we had progressed so far down the list that a scholarly treatment of the Hardy Boys novels was the next thing in line, but I guess it came right after a detailed look at the allegories contained in the works of L. Frank Baum.

At the end of the day, it was mostly well written, blissfully brief, and certainly not everyone's cup of tea.

[Squirrel Circus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Time to confess that I could NOT read this book that I snagged from Early Readers a while back. I love an academic study of the impact of pop culture on society and vice versa, but this was painful. The microscopic examinations of these classic tales read like doctoral dissertations. I get the impression that the book wasn't compiled for the average reader, which I admittedly am. Having said that, I would be happy to gift the book to someone who might enjoy it.