The Hardy Boys #1: The Tower Treasure: Differences Between the 1927 and the 1959 Versions

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I ended up reading the Revised Text version of The Tower Treasure on Tuesday and into yesterday. So rather than review the Revised Text version, I'm going to talk about the differences and similarities between the two versions in terms of story and characters. I touched on some of the differences in my review of the 1927 version, but this time I want to focus on the similarities, because there are alot of them. So let's get into it.

One of the things I enjoyed about reading the two different versions back to back is actually seeing how different the two versions are and also seeing how much is the same between them as well. Because unlike some of the later books in the series that got revised in the '50s and '60s, there is actually not a whole lot that's changed in the revision of this book in terms of plot. In fact there are entire sections that are word for word in both versions. For example, Frank and Callie's conversation on their way to visit the Robinsons at their new home is word for word the exact same in both versions.

Another example of this is a section in the Revised Text version where the boys are at Willow Grove after a morning of searching for Chet's car, the Queen. In the Original Text version, everyone but Joe goes for a swim. In the Revised Text version everyone but Joe takes a quick nap. But after that, the text is exactly the same, including Joe remembering what his father said earlier in the book about how being observant is what makes a successful detective. Except that in the Revised Text version, Fenton never tells the boys this following their return home from running his errand and their discovery of Chet's car missing, because Frank and Joe have actually been helping Fenton on a few cases up to this point in the Revised Text. So they already know this unlike in the Original Text version, where they helped him on one case and happened to get lucky. 

One of the differences between the Original Text and Revised Text is that Chief Collig plays a much smaller role in the story in the Revised Text version. In the Original Text, Collig and Smuff are working together because they're incompetent, and it appears that Smuff is already a member of the Bayport Police Department. So he and Collig work together, against Fenton and the boys, making several blunders along the way. In the Revised Text, Collig doesn't really do much except be the officer that Chet reports the theft of his car to at the beginning of the book, and then he doesn't show up again until the very end of the book to release Henry Robinson from jail and take him to Tower Mansion for Applegate's announcement concerning the recovery of his stolen property by Frank and Joe. He's mentioned a couple of times, but is only seen the two times since Smuff is an amateur detective, working on his own.

Another huge difference is the age of Frank and Joe. In the Original Text version, Frank is only 16 and Joe is 15, while in the Revised Text version, Frank is 18 and Joe is 17. This actually fluctuates quite a bit in the original series with Frank and Joe being 16 and 15 respectively in the Original Text books until book 15 or 16, where they're 17 and 16 respectively, and then I think not long after that they go to their standard ages of 18 and 17.  

As I mentioned in my review of the Original Text version yesterday, I do miss the scene where Frank and Joe have dinner with Callie, Chet, and Iola at the Morton farm. It's a scene that really made me feel like I could relate to Frank and Joe, because they were doing normal teenager things that I could see my friends and I doing when I was in high school. Like having a group of us together at someone's house for dinner for example. To this day, whenever I read the Revised Text version of the book that scene always makes me smile. So to know that that sequence was written for the Revised Text and was not in the Original Text is interesting.

There are tons more similarities and differences between the two versions of The Tower Treasure, but those are the major ones that I noticed, and like I said, alot of the text is the same in both versions, it's just a matter of altering scenes or removing or adding scenes to get one or the other version of the book. And like I said, the Original Text version feels like the first book in the series, whereas the Revised Text version feels like any other book in the Hardy Boys series. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back at some point with more posts. Maybe even a home media related post. Until then have a wonderful night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.