I have two copies of the same Hardy Boys book — at least, the title is the same, but actually, the books tell two completely different stories! Whats up?
The answer to this lies in a giant project undertaken by Harriet Adams, Edward Stratemeyer’s daughter, between 1959 and 1973. Adams felt that the Hardy Boys books, which had then been in print for over 30 years, were getting outdated, so she decided to systematically revise the first 38 books in the series. Some of the revised stories were simply touched-up versions of the original, but others were completely new stories that weren’t related to their predecessor in any way. Since there are still lots of the original books floating around, there are now several pairs of completely different Hardy Boys stories that share the same title.
