The History
When the first Hardy Boys books were issued in the States back in 1927, it was still to take another 23 years for them to reach the distant country of Norway. The publisher "Forlagshuset A/S" in Oslo, then in 1950, started what was to become the biggest success in juvenile literature ever in Norway. Every boy (and also some girl) born between 1940 and, let's say, 1990, has some kind of relationship with Frank and Joe, and for some of us they've meant a whole lot. However, it was back in the fifties and sixties The Hardy Boys had their prime time in Norway.
In Norway the books were issued in the same order as in the US for a period of time. Then, for some unknown reason, this was changed. It should be mentioned that in Norway all the books were issued in the same series, just called "The Hardy Boys". The books are still printed. New books do still come, and old titles are reprinted.
Follow the link to find out what year the titles were first printed in Norway. I've also translated the Norwegian title into English, in those cases the original American title wasn't directly translated in the first place. 
One interesting fact is that in Norway the revisions of the original books, that took place in USA from 1959 or so, were issued as all new books in the series, with new numbers. Because of that, you will in many cases find two books in the list with different number but the same original title. The revised books that came as a new title in the series in Norway are as the list below shows:- # 4 and 63, The Missing Chums.
- # 9 and 49, The Great Airport Mystery.
- # 12 and 47, Footprints under the Window.
- # 14 and 51, The Hidden Harbour Mystery.
- # 15 and 69, The Sinister Signpost.
- # 16 and 53, A Figure in Hiding.
- # 17 and 67, The Secret Warning.
- # 19 and 65, The Disappearing Floor.
- # 20 and 59, The Mystery of the Flying Express
- # 21 and 61, The Clue of the Broken Blade.
- # 22 and 57, The Flickering Torch.
- # 23 and 55, The Melted Coins.
As mentioned earlier, all the Norwegian language Hardy Boys books are in the same series. These books have been reprinted over and over again, and it's kind of hard to get the full knowledge of how many different reprints there are of each number in the series, but I think it must be at least four or five. The publisher isn't too informative about that, and there are very few books where year of print and edition are given. However, there are a few things to look at when to decide this:
- In all first editions, at least up to number 40 something, the year of edition is printed on page three or five.
- Then there's the spine of each book, which has changed over the years. Roughly, one can say that the books from the fifties have a leather-look spine, the books from the sixties and seventies a cloth spine, and the eighties and nineties editions have a syntethic spine of some sort. This spine is in a lighter red color than the others, but all have the a circle shaped Hardy Boys-logo, the title, number and name of the "author" printed in gold letters. The new editions are also printed on thinner sheets of paper, and are thinner, although the number of pages is the same.
Finally: I have no idea, in fact, how many Hardy Boys books that have been sold in total in Norway up to this date, but it must be millions. On the back of my first edition of #11, "While the clock ticked", this is printed: 120.000 copies sold in Norway. Compared to the USA, where the number of copies sold at the same time was 10.000.000, according to the same source, this may not impress anybody. But you have to remember that Norway at that moment was a country of less than 4 million inhabitants, and the books had only been in sale for two years. I'm kind of impressed!Any questions or comments? Do you miss anything? Please mail me
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