# Is "The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1)" by Franklin W. Dixon (Leslie McFarlane) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1) by Franklin W. Dixon (Leslie McFarlane) (Grosset & Dunlap, 1927) is identified by: Grosset & Dunlap printed no statement of edition or printing, so identification is entirely by type and ad-list points; the Carpentieri & Mular bibliography designates the true first as 1927A-1. US-only true first: Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1927 — the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Grosset & Dunlap printed no statement of edition or printing, so identification is entirely by type and ad-list points; the Carpentieri & Mular bibliography designates the true first as 1927A-1
- The primary point is typographic: on page 31, line 12, the "t" in "talking" is complete and unbattered — later states show the letter broken or battered; three independent dealers state this point ("unbattered 'T' on p
- 31"; "Complete 'T' on p
- 31, line 12"; "the letter 't' in 'talking' on page 31, line 12 is complete")
- The book collates iv, 214, [6] pages of ads, bound in bright red cloth lettered in brown and black with blank endpapers and a glossy black-and-white frontispiece by Walter S. Rogers
- The pre-text series list must run only through "The Secret of the Old Mill" — any listing of a later Hardy Boys title rules out the first printing — and the rear ads should run: Tom Swift (29 titles, ending "Airline Express"), Don Sturdy (7 titles, ending "Among Gorillas"), Radio Boys (10 titles), Garry Grayson Football (5 titles), and Western Stories for Boys (5 titles, ending with the X Bar X Boys' Round-Up as the last title listed)
- Publisher imprint reads Grosset & Dunlap

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Franklin W. Dixon (Leslie McFarlane) |
| Publisher | Grosset & Dunlap |
| Year | 1927 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Grosset & Dunlap printed no statement of edition or printing, so identification is entirely by type and ad-list points; the Carpentieri &… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Grosset & Dunlap printed no statement of edition or printing, so identification is entirely by type and ad-list points; the Carpentieri & Mular bibliography designates the true first as 1927A-1. The primary point is typographic: on page 31, line 12, the "t" in "talking" is complete and unbattered — later states show the letter broken or battered; three independent dealers state this point ("unbattered 'T' on p. 31"; "Complete 'T' on p. 31, line 12"; "the letter 't' in 'talking' on page 31, line 12 is complete"). The book collates iv, 214, [6] pages of ads, bound in bright red cloth lettered in brown and black with blank endpapers and a glossy black-and-white frontispiece by Walter S. Rogers. The pre-text series list must run only through "The Secret of the Old Mill" — any listing of a later Hardy Boys title rules out the first printing — and the rear ads should run: Tom Swift (29 titles, ending "Airline Express"), Don Sturdy (7 titles, ending "Among Gorillas"), Radio Boys (10 titles), Garry Grayson Football (5 titles), and Western Stories for Boys (5 titles, ending with the X Bar X Boys' Round-Up as the last title listed). The first-format jacket carries the Rogers pictorial design of the boys concealed in a bush before Tower Mansion, lettered in yellow and orange, and should be unclipped with the price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
US-only true first: Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1927 — the census claim is confirmed. The Tower Treasure was one of three "breeder" volumes issued simultaneously in 1927 (with The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill), so no precedence exists among those three; there is no UK or foreign-language edition preceding 1927, and the pseudonymous "Franklin W. Dixon" is the Stratemeyer Syndicate house name for ghostwriter Leslie McFarlane. Because the format ran unchanged for years, the year on the title page alone establishes nothing — the points, not the date, govern.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Grosset & Dunlap never states printings, so the ad lists and pre-text series list are the working reprint tell: any list carrying titles published after The Secret of the Old Mill is a later printing in the same 1927 format. The text was rewritten in 1959; every post-1959 issue carries the revised text and is a first thus at best. Picture-cover (illustrated board) issues from the 1960s onward, and the Applewood Books facsimile reprints of the original text begun in 1991 (including the Collector's Boxed Set, ISBN 9781557091536), reproduce the original text but are modern reprints, not the 1927 first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1)* by Franklin W. Dixon (Leslie McFarlane) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-tower-treasure-hardy-boys-1
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.