The Authors of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Were Made Up

An American television mystery series based on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew young-adult novels is called The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (renamed The Hardy Boys for season three). Glen A. Larson from Universal Television created the series for ABC, which aired from January 30, 1977, through January 14, 1979. Nancy Drew was portrayed by Pamela Sue Martin (later Janet Louise Johnson), and the brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, amateur detectives, were played by Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book series are both enormously well-liked. The Hardy Boys books have sold over 70 million copies. Nancy Drew can also claim this. Therefore, you'd imagine that their creators, Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene, would be very happy. However, neither of them are actual people.

Many writers use the pen names Dixon and Keene. Both were developed in the 1920s by Edward Stratemeyer, who came up with the names and gave other authors their ideas, so they could expand them into whole works. It functions very similarly to how content mills on the internet do now.