Table of Contents

Preface      1
Introduction: The Hardy Boys at Eighty      5

1. Off the Assembly Line: The Fiction Factory of Edward Stratemeyer      23
2. The McFarlane Formula: “I Opted for Quality”      47
3. The Weird Period      66
4. The Hardy Boys in Peace and Cold War      72
5. Policing the Hardy Boys: The “Great Purge”      83
6. Into the Disco Age      91
7. Race      98
8. Class      130
9. Hardy Girls: Gender in the Hardy Boys      138
10. Hardy Family Values      150
11. Law and Order      166
12. Action, Not Violence      176
13. Bayport, USA      189
14. The Hardy Boys on Stage, on Screen, and in Parody      201
15. Book Wars: The Series Book Under Fire      215

Chronology      231
The Hardy Boys Canon      233
Twenty Opening Lines      239
Hardyisms      241
Chapter Notes      243
Bibliography      247
Index      251