George Wilson

Just a quick note today, but I was able to find a link to a biography of George Wilson, illustrator, and wanted to reference it briefly. For about a year, I've felt confident in saying that George Wilson was one of the primary illustrators of late 60s and early 70s Hardy Boys titles. This was based on two elements exclusively, that these drawings are clearly distinctive of being drawn by a single hand, and secondly on the evidence of the UK site (hardyboys.co.uk) that mentions George Wilson as the credited artist for the frontispiece of the UK imprint of Secret of the Lost Tunnel.

In other words, it was largely circumstantial that George Wilson was the artist, but equally unquestioned which illustrations were his. Today I ran across a biography entry on George Wilson that features two telling bits of evidence that the information I've been believing is accurate. Namely, George Wilson is "made illustrations for romance and wild west paperbacks, including book series like 'The Hardy Boys'."

What a feeling to have researched and found a name, grouped titles by matching the style of the artwork, and finding a corroborating acknowledgment that the linking of the two is accurate and justified. The second bit of interesting info was one of the samples of Wilson's artwork. In it, Tim Robinson is featured, looking very much like the iconic style of Joe Hardy that makes sorting out which Hardy Boys titles are illustrated by Wilson so easy.

For comparison, I used the frontispiece from Secret of the Lost Tunnel, which seems to be the only known illustration credited to George Wilson (in the UK imprint). I think the similarity is remarkable, and spot on. There are other instances where Joe is drawn even more like this image of Tim Robinson, but I wanted to use the credited illustration to strengthen the connection I'm trying to make. Joe really has a distinctive look in Wilson's drawings.