This quality large print edition includes the complete text of the second original classic tale from the world's most successful series of books for young readers, the "Hardy Boys Mystery Stories." This freshly edited and formatted edition.was prepared entirely by human editors and is not a machine scanned facsimile of an older version. Printed on heavyweight bright white paper, it features a fully laminated cover with a new full color design. The Old House on the Cliff Frank and Joe Hardy are investigating a mysterious old house high on the cliffs above Barmet Bay when they are frightened off by a mysterious scream. Then, while investigating a smuggling operation occurring near their town of Bayport, Frank and Joe’s father, famous detective Fenton Hardy, disappears. The boys believe their father has been kidnapped and begin to search for him. Their investigation quickly begins to focus on the old house on the cliff, and they mobilize their friends to help them with the search. Discovering a secret tunnel and caves beneath the house, the boys find a connection between the smuggling case, the old house, and their father's disappearance, and find that danger is waiting in the darkness of the caves. About the Author... "Franklin W. Dixon" was the name used by the publisher as the author of the Hardy Boys mysteries, which were actually written by several different authors over the years. Most of the early books, generally considered the best of the series, were written by Canadian author Leslie McFarlane, and his work on the Hardy Boys is widely agreed to have brought about a new era in young readers books, with detailed characters and plots instead of simple stories split into chapters. The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories... Launched in 1927, the Hardy Boys mysteries effectively launched a new era in books intended for younger readers, until then collectively regarded as "children's books." The original ghostwriter, Canadian newspaper writer Leslie McFarlane once remarked that he thought the Hardy Boys "deserved better than the slap-dash treatment" given the characters in most books intended for young readers at the time. The detailed treatment he gave characters, plots and story lines in the early Hardy Boys mystery stories set a new standard for "children's books," moving beyond the established practice of just dividing a story into chapters and popularizing a class of book aimed specifically at an older age group. The original 58 stories were extensively rewritten and "updated" throughout the 1960's and 70's, to conform to the new books being produced in that era, but many Hardy Boys fans and collectors believe that the updated versions were effectively "dumbed down", as they were shortened, rewritten to target a younger age group, and swaths of dialog were replaced with narrative paragraphs to provide more "action" in an effort to "compete with television". The Hardy Boys themselves were depicted as much more deferential to authority and conformist, and less adventurous and free-wheeling. Additional characters were written in, most of which were little more than "window dressing" and did nothing to advance the plots, and the stories bacame less adventurous and more standardized.