RARA-AVIS: Long-running series

From: kevinburtonsmith (kvnsmith@sbcglobal.net)
Date: 25 Aug 2008

  • Next message: Brian Thornton: "Re: RARA-AVIS: Long-running series"

     Victoria Two <msvictoriatwo@...> wrote:

    > I just picked up book 144 in the Nancy Drew series, The E-Mail Mystery, and her father
    is a lawyer.  Nancy is helping out in the office during her summer vacation. 
    >  
    > I wonder if a series with 144 books could be a record.   

    Hi, Vicky Two,

    Not even close. The Larry Kent series in Australia numbered at least 431 books (granted, I think they were all mostly novella length).

    And the Nancy Drews, the Hardy Boys, the Larry Kents, the Michael Shaynes, the Le Poulpe series and several other long-running series were all written by a slew of different authors, usually under house names.

    Which may be why Franklin W. Dixon never returned my calls....

    The longest-running (P.I.) series I've found written by a singular author is the Le Manchot series by Pierre Saurel, which came to 47 books. They were written in French and featured a Montreal private eye with a hook for a hand.

    I've never actually read any of these, and I suspect they might be dreadful, but I'd be happy to hear otherwise. Has anyone come across any of them?

    And for that matter, what other long-running series come to mind? I have a list on my site
    (http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv30.html), but it's woefully out of date...

    Kevin



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