Debuting in 1927, The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories were produced in book length by the famous Stratemeyer Syndicate, the company responsible for the Bobbsey Twins (see entry under 1940s—Print Culture in volume 3) and Nancy Drew (see entry under 1930s—Print Culture in volume 2) series. Readers of the first Hardy Boys stories learned that brothers Joe and Frank Hardy were amateur detectives. They tracked down criminals using "up-to-the-minute" technologies like shortwave radio and chased them on motorbikes, planes, and trains. They even had their own laboratory where they examined clues with microscopes and fingerprinting kits. Combining detective mystery with fast-paced adventure, the Hardy boys and their friends were a big hit. They survived the retirement after twenty years of their original writer Leslie McFarlane (1902–1977) and seem likely to remain in print well into the twenty-first century.

The Hardy Boys have long lived up to Stratemeyer's...