Leslie McFarlane (October 25, 1902 – September 6, 1977) was a Canadian journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. Events 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a Year 1902 ( MCMII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 3114 BC - According to the Proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started Also 1977 (album by Ash. Year 1977 ( MCMLXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page
Early years
Born Charles Leslie McFarlane in Carleton Place, Ontario, he is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. Carleton Place (population 10000 is a Town in eastern Ontario, Canada, in Lanark County, about west of Downtown Ottawa on A ghostwriter is a professional Writer who is paid to write books articles stories reports or other content which are officially credited to another person The Hardy Boys is a Juvenile detective/adventure series chronicling the Fictional adventures of Teenage brothers Frank and A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a Pseudonym adopted by an Author or their publishers to conceal their identity Franklin W Dixon is the Pen name used by a variety of different authors ( Leslie McFarlane, a Canadian author being the first who wrote The Hardy Boys
The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in the town of Haileybury, Ontario. Temiskaming Shores is a City in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. He became a freelance writer shortly after high school. He and his family moved to Whitby, Ontario in 1936. Whitby (2006 population 111184 is a Town in Ontario, Canada. Whitby is located east of Toronto
Books
As a young man he worked in Sudbury, Ontario as a newspaper reporter then for a weekly paper in Toronto before taking a job at the Springfield Republican newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts. While in the U. S. he replied to a want ad placed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, publisher of such titles as Nancy Drew, Tom Swift and the Bobbsey Twins. As a result, he freelanced in 1926 and 1927 as one of the authors using the pseudonym Roy Rockwood to write seven of the Dave Fearless serialized mystery novels. This led to his involvement with the Hardy Boys, a project on which he was a large contributor, writing 19 of the first 25 books between 1927 and 1946 and 21 overall. He also wrote books in several other juvenile series, hed in pulp magazines, novellas or novels over his fifty year career at one point writing six novels in one year. Leslie earned as little as $85 per book during the Great Depression yet he continued because he had a growing family.
According to his son, McFarlane regarded the Hardy Boys books as a nuisance.
"In his diaries, my father talks about having to write another of those cursed books, in order to earn another $100 to buy coal for the furnace. And he never read them over afterward. It was only much later that he accepted plaudits for the work. "[1]
His daughter, Norah McFarlane Perez, said in an interview that "They'd give him an outline, But to make it palatable, he'd come up with different characters and add colour and use large words, and inject his wonderful sense of humour. And then he'd finish and say, 'I will never write another juvenile book. ' But then the bills would pile up and he'd start another. "[1]
However, McFarlane was not bitter about not earning a cut of the enormous revenues generated by his work. "He was very philosophical about it. His attitude was, 'Look, I took these on and I was glad to get the deal. ' There was no rancour," according to his daughter. [1]
While still writing for the series for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, McFarlane returned to Canada to work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). As part of the NFB, in 1953 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film for his documentary titled Herring Hunt. Moving to Toronto he wrote for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC television and at the suggestion of his friend Lorne Greene, moved to Hollywood for a time to write scripts for the TV Western Bonanza in which Greene starred.
McFarlane also wrote the first four volumes of The Dana Girls series for the Stratemeyer Syndicate under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, which he used for the Nancy Drew series of books. Nancy Drew (1930-present is an amateur sleuth, the fictional Heroine of a popular Mystery series, aimed at the children - young His last Hardy Boys book, The Phantom Freighter was actually written by his wife, Amy. [2]
The Leslie McFarlane Public School in Whitby, Ontario is named in his honor. His son, Brian McFarlane, is well known as a former commentator on Hockey Night in Canada. Brian McFarlane (born August 10, 1931 in New Liskeard, Ontario) is a Canadian television Sportscaster and author
In 2006, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario acquired the diaries, correspondence and early material of Leslie McFarlane, along with first editions of The Secret of the Caves and The Tower Treasure. University research collections librarian Carl Spadoni has been quoted as saying that the University plans to acquire early first editions of all of McFarlane's books. The archive donated to McMaster is estimated to have a value of $150,000. [3]
Hardy Boy books attributed to Leslie McFarlane:
- The Tower Treasure (1927)
- The House on the Cliff (1927)
- The Secret of the Old Mill (1927)
- The Missing Chums (1928)
- Hunting for Hidden Gold (1928)
- The Shore Road Mystery (1928)
- The Secret of the Caves (1929)
- The Mystery of Cabin Island (1929)
- The Great Airport Mystery (1930)
- What Happened at Midnight (1931)
- While the Clock Ticked (1932)
- Footprints under the Window (1933)
- The Mark on the Door (1934)
- The Hidden Harbor Mystery (1935)
- The Sinister Signpost (1936)
- A Figure in Hiding (1937)
- The Flickering Torch Mystery (1943)
- The Melted Coins (1944)
- The Short-Wave Mystery (1945)
- The Secret Panel (1946)
- The Phantom Freighter (by Amy McFarlane) (1947)
References
- ^ a b c A reluctant author of bestsellers by Michael Posner, The Globe and Mail, December 18, 2006
- ^ Remembering Hardy Boys author Leslie McFarlane, CBC Radio
- ^ McMaster Daily News, December 20, 2006
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