Franklin W. Dixon
Author of The Tower Treasure
About the Author
Franklin W. Dixon Franklin W. Dixon is actually a pseudonym for any number of ghostwriters who have had the distinction of writing stories for the Hardy Boys series. The series was originally created by Edward Stratmeyer in 1926, the same mastermind of the Nancy Drew detective series, Tom Swift, show more the Rover Boys and other characters. While Stratmeyer created the outlines for the original series, it was Canadian writer Leslie McFarlane who breathed life to the stories and created the persona Franklin W. Dixon. McFarlane wrote for the series for over twenty years and is credited with success of the early collection of stories. As the series became more popular, it was pared down, the format changed and new ghostwriters added their own flavor to the stories. Part of the draw of the Hardy Boys is that as the authors changed, so to did the times and the story lines. While there is no one true author of the series, each ghostwriter can be given credit for enhancing the life of this series and never unveiling that there really is no Franklin W. Dixon. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Franklin W. Dixon is a pen name used by a variety of authors writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, most famously for the Hardy Boys series.
Please do not combine the ghostwriters with this pseudonym.
Leslie McFarlane is one of the better known of the ghostwriters hired by the Syndicate.
Like Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, and other major Syndicate series, the creator of the character is Edward Stratemeyer. He then wrote outlines and hired ghostwriters. He then edited the books and marketed them. The Syndicate was the owner of the work.
Series
Works by Franklin W. Dixon
The Tower Treasure / The House on the Cliff (The Hardy Boys, 2 Books in 1) (1959) 614 copies, 5 reviews
The Hardy Boys, Collector's Edition: The Caribbean Cruise Caper, Daredevils, Skin & Bones (2002) 138 copies
The House on the Cliff/The Ghost at Skeleton Rock/The Sting of the Scorpion (Best of the Hardy Boys, Classic Collection: Volume 2) (2004) 34 copies
Hardy Boys Clue Book 4 books in 1!: The Video Game Bandit; The Missing Playbook; Water-Ski Wipeout; Talent Show Tricks (2016) 28 copies
Shore Road Mystery / Great Airport Mystery / At the Sign of the Crooked Arrow (The Hardy Boys) (1990) 18 copies
Hardy Boys Series 16 copies
The Stone Idol / The Vanishing Thieves / The Outlaw's Silver (The Hardy Boys, 3 Vols.) (1987) 15 copies
Night of the Werewolf/The Mystery of the Samurai Sword/The Pentagon Spy (Hardy Boys 59-61) (1985) 13 copies
The Disappearing Floor / The Wailing Siren Mystery / The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior (1983) 10 copies
The Submarine Caper / The Four-Headed Dragon / The Infinity Clue (The Hardy Boys 68-70; 3 Vols. in 1) (1988) 7 copies
The Ghost At Skeleton Rock - The Clue Of The Broken Blade - The Secret Of Wildcat Swamp (1993) 7 copies
What Happened at Midnight? / The Sinister Signpost / The Clue in the Embers (Hardy Boys 10, 15 & 35; 3 Vols. in 1) (1991) 7 copies
The Hardy Boys Casefiles Collection Foreign Exchange: Disaster for Hire / Scene of the Crime / The Borderline Case (1997) 6 copies
The Masked Monkey, The Shattered Helemt & The Clue of the Hissing Serpent (The Hardy Boys 3-in-1) 6 copies
The Hardy Boys in The mystery of the whale tattoo, The mystery of the desert giant, The flickering torch mystery (1993) 6 copies
Hardy Boys Mysteries: The Crisscross Shadow | Hunting for Hidden Gold | Mystery of Cabin Island (1993) 5 copies
The Tower Treasure / The House on the Cliff / The Secret of the Old Mill / The Missing Chums (2017) 5 copies
The Mystery of the Silver Star, Programme for Destruction, and the Sky Blue Flame (The Hardy Boys 3-in-1 Mysteries) (1995) 4 copies
While the Clock Ticked / The Clue of the Screeching Owl (Hardy Boys 11 & 41; 2 Vols. in 1) (1995) 4 copies
The Hardy Boys Collection: The Tower Treasure The House on the Cliff The Secret of the Old Mill 4 copies
The Crisscross Shadow / Footprints Under the Window / Hunting for Hidden Gold (The Hardy Boys 3-in-1 Mysteries) (1994) 3 copies
Hardy Boys Mysteries: The Clue in the Embers | The Hooded Hawk Mystery | Secret Agent on Flight 101 3 copies
Duel with Death 2 copies
Omnibus 114, 124, 133 2 copies
Hardy Boys Set - Books 51-58 2 copies
The Hardy Boys Casefiles Collection (Murder and Mayhem: Too Many Traitors/Blood Relations/Line of Fire) (1995) 2 copies
The Sectret of Pirates' Hill 1 copy
Three Ring Terror 1 copy
The Flickering Torch Mystery 1 copy
The Hardy Boys Radical Moves 1 copy
The Hardy Boys 1, 2, 3, 10 1 copy
Hardy Boys Adventures Collection, Volume 1: Secret of the Red Arrow, Mystery of the Phantom Heist 1 copy
The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior / The Haunted Fort / The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge (2002) 1 copy
Dinosaurs A Closer Look 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- pseudonym for any number of ghostwriters
- Gender
- n/a
- Relationships
- McFarlane, Leslie (wrote as)
- Map Location
- USA
Canada - Disambiguation notice
- Franklin W. Dixon is a pen name used by a variety of authors writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, most famously for the Hardy Boys series.
Please do not combine the ghostwriters with this pseudonym.
Leslie McFarlane is one of the better known of the ghostwriters hired by the Syndicate.
Like Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, and other major Syndicate series, the creator of the character is Edward Stratemeyer. He then wrote outlines and hired ghostwriters. He then edited the books and marketed them. The Syndicate was the owner of the work.
Members
Reviews
This book was published in 1990, and its “cutting-edge” computer technology is a source of much hilarity in 2026. I remember well the days of modems being used to dial up the internet, although I never got into bulletin board systems as the characters in the book do. I remember thinking this was a really cool book when I read it, so a lot of my four-star rating can be chalked up to nostalgia. But as a Hardy Boys novel I think it’s generally good. No casual racism or sexism, and the show more story moves along at a very fast pace. Canada gets a mention as well, woo! I’m sure there are plot or logic holes you can drive a truck through, but for a short burst of entertainment, it does the job well. show less
Captain Thomas Maguire, a friend of Fenton Hardy, has requested Fenton’s help with a bunch of strange happenings going on around his remote country cabin. Fenton sends his sons Frank & Joe along with their friend, Chet Morton, out to the scene to investigate. When the boys arrive, they discover that Captain Maguire has mysteriously vanished…& it looks like foul play was involved. The Hardy Boys must find Captain Maguire while solving all of the baffling occurrences in Black Hollow…from show more screeching owls, to multiple dognappings, to highway robberies. Will Frank & Joe be able to solve the case before the sinister criminals get them out of the way…permanently?
This is pretty standard Hardy Boys fare, with a few problematic elements thrown in. There are tinges of animal abuse peppered throughout the story, from Colonel Thunder’s animal act to suggestions of selling stolen dogs for medical experimentation. The Hardy Boys are genuinely threatened with physical harm and death in this story, most notably when their cabin is burned to the ground while they are sleeping soundly inside. And poor Chet Morton! I am firmly convinced that the character of cowardly overeater Chet Morton exists solely to make Frank & Joe look cooler and more heroic than they would on their own. This is painfully evident in this installment of the series; the jokes about Chet’s weight and love affair with food just go way beyond the boundaries of healthy friendship. show less
This is pretty standard Hardy Boys fare, with a few problematic elements thrown in. There are tinges of animal abuse peppered throughout the story, from Colonel Thunder’s animal act to suggestions of selling stolen dogs for medical experimentation. The Hardy Boys are genuinely threatened with physical harm and death in this story, most notably when their cabin is burned to the ground while they are sleeping soundly inside. And poor Chet Morton! I am firmly convinced that the character of cowardly overeater Chet Morton exists solely to make Frank & Joe look cooler and more heroic than they would on their own. This is painfully evident in this installment of the series; the jokes about Chet’s weight and love affair with food just go way beyond the boundaries of healthy friendship. show less
Frank and Joe Hardy, and their friends Chet, Biff and Tony, are recruited by the Hardys' father, Fenton, to help out on a case that takes them to the Northwest Territories. They're on the trail of a stolen Viking rune stone that purports to tell the location of great treasure. The thieves, of course, are after the treasure, while the Hardys et al. are tasked with recovering both the treasure and the stone for transport to a museum.
This is a particularly fast-paced Hardy Boys adventure. show more They're constantly getting on planes, flying up north, flying back to Alberta to talk to the police, flying up north again... I found it a bit difficult to figure out where they were! And as a Canadian I found this story hilarious for the sheer ridiculousness of it. For example, Joe claims that Edmonton, Alberta, is "on the edge" of the Northwest Territories. Look at a map -- Edmonton is in pretty much the centre of the province and is a staggering 1500 km away from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. (Later on, Fenton gets out an atlas and shows the boys where Yellowknife and Edmonton are. To which I commented, "And Joe realized how horribly wrong he was.") I also found the depiction of the Hudson's Bay Company store felt a bit 1700s, probably because they still referred to the head of the store as the "factor". I thought this was supposed to be modern-day, which for this book would be the early 1960s. And then there was the French-Canadian trapper, whose every other line was either "Bon tonnerre!" or "Sacrebleu!"
This book also felt quite a bit more like a wish-fulfillment story (as I imagine all Hardy Boys books are; this one just felt more obvious about it). I have a hard time believing that the FAA would certify an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old as fully qualified to add seaplane ratings to their pilots' licences after a mere two days of practice. (Pilot: "You should be able to pass the FAA proficiency test now!" Me: "Wow, that must be a sh*t test then.") And Fenton being totally cool with outsourcing some of his detective work to his assistant and a motley selection of his sons' friends? Right.
This book did not contain any screechingly obvious examples of racism, or sexism beyond the usual fact of the Hardys' mom and aunt showing up only briefly at the beginning and being more preoccupied with domestic matters than crime, so for an original Hardy Boys book it is doing fairly well. I did, however, notice that there was a lot of fat-shaming of Chet, constantly referring to him as "chubby" or "chunky", and a key plot point involves the fact that he's hungry. Given that he is able to keep up perfectly well with the Hardys in the wilderness, I can't believe he is actually fat. Standards of body weight were different back then -- I think Chet probably just doesn't work out as much!
This isn't a terrible book, but I wouldn't give it to a child without some sort of disclaimer about the style and the general silliness. Maybe better for ageing children such as me, who grew up with the Hardy Boys and are trying to recover that magic. show less
This is a particularly fast-paced Hardy Boys adventure. show more They're constantly getting on planes, flying up north, flying back to Alberta to talk to the police, flying up north again... I found it a bit difficult to figure out where they were! And as a Canadian I found this story hilarious for the sheer ridiculousness of it. For example, Joe claims that Edmonton, Alberta, is "on the edge" of the Northwest Territories. Look at a map -- Edmonton is in pretty much the centre of the province and is a staggering 1500 km away from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. (Later on, Fenton gets out an atlas and shows the boys where Yellowknife and Edmonton are. To which I commented, "And Joe realized how horribly wrong he was.") I also found the depiction of the Hudson's Bay Company store felt a bit 1700s, probably because they still referred to the head of the store as the "factor". I thought this was supposed to be modern-day, which for this book would be the early 1960s. And then there was the French-Canadian trapper, whose every other line was either "Bon tonnerre!" or "Sacrebleu!"
This book also felt quite a bit more like a wish-fulfillment story (as I imagine all Hardy Boys books are; this one just felt more obvious about it). I have a hard time believing that the FAA would certify an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old as fully qualified to add seaplane ratings to their pilots' licences after a mere two days of practice. (Pilot: "You should be able to pass the FAA proficiency test now!" Me: "Wow, that must be a sh*t test then.") And Fenton being totally cool with outsourcing some of his detective work to his assistant and a motley selection of his sons' friends? Right.
This book did not contain any screechingly obvious examples of racism, or sexism beyond the usual fact of the Hardys' mom and aunt showing up only briefly at the beginning and being more preoccupied with domestic matters than crime, so for an original Hardy Boys book it is doing fairly well. I did, however, notice that there was a lot of fat-shaming of Chet, constantly referring to him as "chubby" or "chunky", and a key plot point involves the fact that he's hungry. Given that he is able to keep up perfectly well with the Hardys in the wilderness, I can't believe he is actually fat. Standards of body weight were different back then -- I think Chet probably just doesn't work out as much!
This isn't a terrible book, but I wouldn't give it to a child without some sort of disclaimer about the style and the general silliness. Maybe better for ageing children such as me, who grew up with the Hardy Boys and are trying to recover that magic. show less
The 1945 edition of this book surely presents one of the wackier plots of the entire Hardy Boy series. The boys are on the trail of a gang that supposedly steals radio parts and builds "black market" short wave radios. The nefarious crooks hide and ship their radios in taxidermy specimens -- stuffed wolves, stuffed bears, stuffed skunks and so on. The idea seems to be that keeping and transporting radio- stuffed stuffed animal specimens will get far less attention from the police authorities show more than mere cardboard boxes of electronic gear.
As it turns out, the Hardy Boys' have gotten interested in short wave radios, and their chum Chet has taken up taxidermy as a hobby -- both being amazing coincidences given that the crooks need stuffed stuff in which to stuff their illegal radio stuff. And speaking of coincidences, the remote Canadian hideout of the head crook ("Spike") lies very close to a place where a group of scientists were stranded; returning via a small airplane from the African Gobi Desert (in a single flight from China, by way of northern Canada?), their plane had gone down there. The scientists have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. But at the denouement, the situation allows for Frank and Joe to ride a small plane to the scene to help arrest Spike, with a handy side trip to rescue the stranded scientists. What heroes these boys are.
According to online sources, the author of this particular book in the series had been under pressure to add more scientific stuff, and apparently the best he could come up with were black market radios (whatever they were). He also reportedly had great trouble finishing the book, and finally turned in a finished draft long after it was due. His difficulty may explain the awkwardness of the tale, its choppy pace, and its poorly connected and incongruous elements. In one of the author's handy innovations, a happy ending is achieved when the H Boys acquire a pair of walkie talkies. For readers under the age of 35, walkie talkies were devices that allowed one to talk to another person while actually walking around -- hence the clever name. They are like a primitive form of cell phone, but one that can't take selfies, contain games, provide directions, show nude photos, or allow young users to keep pace with the trivial details of one another's lives.
Presumably kids of 1945 would have been utterly fascinated by the devices that allowed voice communication over long distances, along with the possibility of being able to ride in an airplane. Their great grandchildren of today will likely be both bored and mystified. As a side issue, it's noteworthy that the Hardy Boys' chum "Chet" is never mentioned without a reminder that he is "fat" (the word and its synonyms are used easily 25 times in a 140 page book, and interspersed with episodes showing that Chet is lazy and loves to eat). Again, the idea is dated, now that such a large percentage of kids are overweight, and making fun of them is no longer a source of good natured sport. That's progress of a sort. show less
As it turns out, the Hardy Boys' have gotten interested in short wave radios, and their chum Chet has taken up taxidermy as a hobby -- both being amazing coincidences given that the crooks need stuffed stuff in which to stuff their illegal radio stuff. And speaking of coincidences, the remote Canadian hideout of the head crook ("Spike") lies very close to a place where a group of scientists were stranded; returning via a small airplane from the African Gobi Desert (in a single flight from China, by way of northern Canada?), their plane had gone down there. The scientists have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. But at the denouement, the situation allows for Frank and Joe to ride a small plane to the scene to help arrest Spike, with a handy side trip to rescue the stranded scientists. What heroes these boys are.
According to online sources, the author of this particular book in the series had been under pressure to add more scientific stuff, and apparently the best he could come up with were black market radios (whatever they were). He also reportedly had great trouble finishing the book, and finally turned in a finished draft long after it was due. His difficulty may explain the awkwardness of the tale, its choppy pace, and its poorly connected and incongruous elements. In one of the author's handy innovations, a happy ending is achieved when the H Boys acquire a pair of walkie talkies. For readers under the age of 35, walkie talkies were devices that allowed one to talk to another person while actually walking around -- hence the clever name. They are like a primitive form of cell phone, but one that can't take selfies, contain games, provide directions, show nude photos, or allow young users to keep pace with the trivial details of one another's lives.
Presumably kids of 1945 would have been utterly fascinated by the devices that allowed voice communication over long distances, along with the possibility of being able to ride in an airplane. Their great grandchildren of today will likely be both bored and mystified. As a side issue, it's noteworthy that the Hardy Boys' chum "Chet" is never mentioned without a reminder that he is "fat" (the word and its synonyms are used easily 25 times in a 140 page book, and interspersed with episodes showing that Chet is lazy and loves to eat). Again, the idea is dated, now that such a large percentage of kids are overweight, and making fun of them is no longer a source of good natured sport. That's progress of a sort. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 623
- Members
- 117,794
- Popularity
- #69
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 697
- ISBNs
- 3,255
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 24
