the Hardy boys remained in their teens from 1927-1960. Thats gotta be worth something?
Whoa!. I just discovered Franklin W Dixon, the “author” of the Hardy Boys mysteries, never existed!
I am stunned!
Then I think you’d have to disqualify The Silmarillion, which was cobbled together from various notes and unfinished works, substantially revised and expanded upon by Christopher Tolkien.
Even sticking to human characters, Heinlein’s W.W. Smith (aka Lazarus Long) was over 2000 years and counting at his latest appearance. Even he is younger than the lesser-known Hanno of Tyre (from Poul Anderson’s Boat of a Million Years), who was born around 500 BCE and survives (with little sign of aging) well into our future – all in one book!
Cafe Society is for everything relating to fiction, not just non-factual stuff. Accordingly, I’ll move this thread over there.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
If you’re going the SF route, it gets really ridiculous. There are probably several characters who are as old or older than the universe. Some have god as a character, he’s got some years on him. What about Jack Chalkers godlike character from The Well World books, I think he made it through several cycles of the universe. Fred Pohl’s world at the end of time had characters that lasted well into the heat death of the universe. Or characters trapped in time loops that just keep going…
No, let’s stick to the OP. It ain’t the character, it’s the writer writing about the character.
Nothing exceptional, but various notable entries are:
Dave Bowman/Frank Poole, by Arthur C. Clarke, (1968-96) 28 years (various interesting arguments)
George Smiley, by John le Carre (1961-91) 30 years
Biggles, by W.E.Johns (1932-68) 36 years
Adam Dalgleish, by D.P. James (1962-2003) 41 years.
Of course, three of these are still running.
The first Dark Tower book was published in 1982.
Lee Falk is said to have written the adventures of The Phantom for a span of 54 years, from 1936 until 1990.
Might be worth considering Jim Qwilleran, Koko and Yum Yum. Lilian Jackson Braun wrote the first book back in 1966. Since she’s still writing away that’s 38 years and counting. I imagine she’ll continue till she dies.
He did publish a bunch of poems back them, many related to Middle Earth. Although I think the only people he mentioned by name are some of the framing characters from “The Book of Lost Tales.”
Though he didn’t write the novelizations George Lucas has been writing about Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader for quite some time now. He didn’t write the screenplays for Empire or Jedi but he did write the screenplay for A New Hope in 1977.
Episode III will be released in 2005 for which he is writing the screenplay making for a total of 28 years.
True, but the first story in the sequence, “The Gunslinger,” was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October, 1978.
Adding short stories to the mix gives some interesting results. For example, Christopher Anvil’s Colonization series began with “Revolt!” in the April 1958 Astounding, and he put out the novel Interstellar Patrol in 2003. I don’t know whether the same characters are in both, however.
Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea series started with the short story “The Rule of Names” in the April 1964 Fantastic and the latest novel, The Telling, came out in 2001.
And if you don’t know: SCI FI Greenlights ‘Earthsea’ for Production in New Zealand. To be presented on the Sci-Fi Channel in December.
Really!?!
Huh.
Then that means his daughter never existed, either?
(I remember reading an afterword or a dust cover or something that said Mr. Dixon had died but his daughter and a whole stable of ghost writers were continuing the Hardy Boys’ tradition.)
Live ‘n’ learn.
You’re not all that wrong:
http://www.hardyboy.com/~bayport/author.html
[quote]
Edward Stratemeyer died in 1930 and his daughters, Edna Squier and Harriet Adams, took over the Syndicate and continued the outlines.
[quote]
Stan Lee co-created Spider-Man in 1962 and wrote the comic book for a decade or more, and the comic strip until sometime in the 1990s I believe.
Dave Sim just published issue 300 of Cerebus, so he’s spent 1977 to 2004 with that aardvark.
Chris Claremont spent 17 years writing the X-Men, and I guess he could be considered the original writer since it was a whole new team. (Though he was a co-writer or assistant with Len Wein on the earliest issues.)
When I clicked on this thread, I thought it was about the longest lived characters, like Methusalah or Lazaraus Long. The winner in that department is no doubt DC comics villian Vandal Savage, who was born a caveman and died in the year 85271 AD.
Curses! Foiled again!
Actually, Stan Lee still writes the daily Spider-Man strip, which puts him at 42 years and counting.
Robert B. Parker published the first Spenser book in 1973, and the latest one this month, a run of 31 years so far.
Ed McBain published his first 87 precient book “Cop Killer” in 1956 and is still writing them–a total of 48 years, with no end in sight. That in itself would be amazing, but McBain also writes the Matthew Hope mysteries, and lots of other good books under his own name and his alter ego Evan Hunter (including “Blackboard Jungle” and the screenplay for “The Birds”).
McBain started a series of “Alphabet Titles” in the 1960’s with Ax, Bread, Calypso, Doll…long before Sue Grafton. The Matthew Hope mysteries have titles based on children’s poems and stories–Cinderella, The House that Jack Built, Puss in Boots, and Glady the Cross-Eyed Bear. McBain/Hunter is both quality and quantity.
Just to clear up a point, Ed McBain is the pseudonym. The author’s real name is Evan Hunter (or at least it has been since he had it legally changed from Salvatore Lombino in 1952).