More on Revisions

According to what I've read, the first three Hardy Boy books were published in 1927 and then a new title was put out roughly once a year after that. In 1959 they started revising the first 38 books, and this went on for many years. You can often tell by the copyright date if it's a revised version; they will have the original copyright date along with the date of the revision. Another way to tell is that the original versions had 25 chapters and were usually around 215 pages, while the revised versions were shortened to 20 chapters and around 180 pages. You generally can't tell from the cover, the type of binding, etc., if the book is an original or revised text. Covers, dust jackets, bindings, and illustrations were altered and changed over the years with many, many printings, and they do not reflect, necessarily, the changes in the text.

The variations in the stories and the writing go from very little change, to heavy changes, to entirely different text. In my opinion, it's best to ignore the rewritten versions at all. The original versions do have flaws, occasional bad writing, dated language, and offensive racial stereotypes, but they are in general much better written than the revised versions, and much more interesting. There is more humor in the original versions, and sometimes there is just plain weirdness. If you have read many of the bland, revised Hardy Boy books and you go back and read some of the original versions, you're in for a surprise.

Right now I'm reading "The Mystery of the Chinese Junk" which is interesting because it is number 39 in the series, and was one of the first books to come out after the revision project began. The version I have is copyright 1960. I'm not sure if there were additional revisions on some titles in later years, but if there were, they are a must to avoid. The "Chinese Junk" was one I got for my 10th birthday in 1970 and I was pretty transfixed by it at the time. Though it became somewhat less magical when I discovered that a junk is a kind of boat, and the book wasn't about some kind of Chinese artifact found in a salvage yard.

My Quest and How It Got Started

The crucial thing is that I started reading Hardy Boy books sometime in the 1960s, which isn't long after they started to be updated, revised, and sometimes completely rewritten. They were usually given to me as a gift from my parents, so they bought them new from the bookstore, or department store, so they were always the most currently published version—they never bought me used books from the used bookstore. So as far as I knew, these books were the only versions ever written. Then one day, when I was in grade school, I got a Hardy Boy book from the library—I believe it was "The Shore Road Mystery"—and there was something terribly wrong with it. It was like I was on drugs, reading that book, though at the time I didn't really think of the concept of "on drugs"—it was like I had gone insane—though I wasn't really aware of that concept, either. I was confused. It was so different—it was the same characters, but their personalities were different. The language was different. It was the same, but different. I had no idea what was going on. There was something terribly strange about that book—and strangely attractive. It wasn't until years and years and years later that I discovered that the Hardy Boy books I read were all rewritten versions of the original ones. That older book from the library was one of the original versions. Once I realized that, I knew that I had to go back and reread all of these books in their original text. But they're not easy to find. So that is my quest. Maybe quest is too strong a word. Well, okay, quest.

Who is Callie Shaw?

She is next door right now with her stethoscope to the wall!