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The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in various mystery series for children and teens. The characters were created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging firm, and the books have been written by many different ghostwriters over the years. The books are published under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.〔http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/franklin-w-dixon〕 The Hardy Boys have evolved in various ways since their first appearance in 1927. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised, largely to eliminate racial stereotypes. The books were also written in a simpler style in an attempt to compete with television. Some critics argue that in the process, the Hardy Boys changed, becoming more respectful of the law and simultaneously more affluent, "agents of the adult ruling class" and the like. Most, however, saw the updates as an attempt to make the style of the books more modern, while lamenting the loss of the richer pre-war descriptive style. Similar complaints were made about the updates to the comparable girls series, Nancy Drew. A new ''Hardy Boys'' series, the ''Hardy Boys Casefiles'', was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original ''Hardy Boys Mystery Stories'' series ended in 2005. A new series, ''Undercover Brothers'', was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person. The Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by ''The Hardy Boys Adventures'', also narrated in the first person. Through all these changes, the characters have remained popular. The books sell more than a million copies a year. Several additional volumes are published annually, and the boys' adventures have been translated into more than 25 languages. The Hardy Boys have been featured in computer games and five television shows and used to promote merchandise such as lunchboxes and jeans. Critics have offered many explanations for the characters' longevity, suggesting variously that the Hardy Boys embody simple wish fulfillment, American ideals of masculinity, American ideals of boyhood, a well-respected father paradoxically argued to be inept, and the possibility of the triumph of good over evil. ==Premise== (詳細はBayport on Barmet Bay with their father, detective Fenton Hardy, their mother, Laura Hardy, and their Aunt Gertrude. Frank, the older brother, is eighteen (sixteen in earlier versions), and his younger brother Joe is seventeen (fifteen in earlier versions). The brothers nominally attend high school in Bayport, where they are in the same grade, but school is rarely mentioned in the books and never hinders the Hardys in solving mysteries. In the older stories, the Hardy Boys' cases often are linked to the confidential cases their detective father is working on. He sometimes asks them for help, while at other times they stumble upon villains and incidents that are connected to his cases. In the Undercover Brothers series, begun in 2005, the Hardys are members of an organization known as American Teens Against Crime, which assigns them to cases. The Hardy Boys are sometimes assisted in solving mysteries by their friends Chet Morton, Phil Cohen, Biff Hooper, Jerry Gilroy, and Tony Prito, and, less frequently, by their platonic girlfriends Callie Shaw and Iola Morton (Chet's sister). The Hardy Boys are constantly involved in adventure and action. Despite frequent danger, the boys "never lose their nerve ... They ''are'' hardy boys, luckier and more clever than anyone around them." They live in an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue: "Never were so many assorted felonies committed in a simple American small town. Murder, drug peddling, race horse kidnapping, diamond smuggling, medical malpractice, big-time auto theft, even (in the 1940s) the hijacking of strategic materials and espionage, all were conducted with Bayport as a nucleus." With so much in common, the boys are so little differentiated that one commentator facetiously describes them thus: "The boys' characters basically broke down this way – Frank had dark hair; Joe was blond." In general, however, "Frank was the thinker while Joe was more impulsive, and perhaps a little more athletic." The two boys are infallibly on good terms with each other and never engage in sibling rivalry, with the exception of the ''New Hardy Boys Casefiles'' series. Frank and Joe do not lack for money and they travel frequently to far-away locations, including Mexico in ''The Mark on the Door'' (1934), Scotland in ''The Secret Agent on Flight 101'' (1967), Iceland in ''The Arctic Patrol Mystery'' (1969), Egypt in ''The Mummy Case'' (1980), and Kenya in ''The Mystery of the Black Rhino'' (2003). The Hardys also travel freely within the United States by motorcycle, motor boat, iceboat, train and airplane, as well as their own car. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Hardy Boys」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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