Bio: Who was Franklin W. Dixon? All Hardy Boys books list Franklin W. Dixon as the author. There's only one problem... Franklin W. Dixon never existed!

But Edward L. Stratemeyer (1862-1930) did exist and it was he who created Joe and Frank Hardy, along with dozens of other series characters in juvenile fiction. Through his Stratemeyer Syndicate, Edward hired authors to write stories from his outlines. They got paid to write the texts, as well as agree never to reveal that they, and not the mythical Mr. Dixon, wrote the books.