Editing Three Investigators (section)

==Original editions==
{{main|The American series of The Three Investigators}}

The original series was published from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 finished books, one unfinished story (''The Mystery of the Ghost Train'') and four ''Find Your Fate'' books. Between 1989 and 1990 [[Random House]] published the Three Investigators [[The American series of The Three Investigators#Crimebusters_(1989–1990)|Crimebusters series]].

Books number 1 to 9 and 11 were written by the creator, [[Robert Arthur Jr.|Robert Arthur]], who also specified ideas for a few of the other stories. Arthur had been an editor for several book collections attributed to [[Alfred Hitchcock]]. The other authors were [[Michael Collins (American author)|William Arden]] ([[Michael Collins (American author)|Dennis Lynds]]), Nick West (Kin Platt), [[Mary Virginia Carey]] and Marc Brandel (born Marcus Beresford). All of the authors wrote their own introductions and epilogues, which were dictated purportedly by Hitchcock and later in the series a fictional writer, Hector Sebastian, who supposedly recorded the adventures of the Three Investigators from their words. The illustrators in the series began with [[Harry Kane (illustrator)|Harry Kane]] and Ed Vebell and include Jack Hearne, Herb Mott, Stephen Marchesi, Robert Adragna and William A. ("Bill") Dodge.

{{anchor|skinnynorris}}For the original series, the specific ages of the investigators were never revealed, but contextual information indicates that they were likely 13 or 14 years old. They were not old enough to drive a car legally, but were said to be just a few years younger than their nemesis Skinny Norris, who had a driver's license from a state where the required age for a license was younger. On one occasion, it was mentioned that Pete was part of the [[Scholastic wrestling|high-school wrestling]] team. In the later Crimebusters series, it was stated once that the Three Investigators team was initiated when the boys were 13.

The investigators were typically introduced to a mystery by a client or by finding something unusual accidentally in the junkyard of Jupiter's Uncle Titus Jones and Aunt Mathilda, who had a salvage business. The boys encountered baffling, sometimes misleading, clues and danger before finally solving the mystery. The series had one major theme: however strange, mystical, or even supernatural a particular phenomenon may seem at first, it is capable of being traced to human agency with the determined application of reason and logic. This theme was compromised on four occasions by Carey: in ''The Mystery of Monster Mountain'', the boys encounter [[Bigfoot]]; in ''The Invisible Dog'', she canonizes [[astral projection]] and dangles the possibility of a "phantom priest"; in ''The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar'', a woman has genuine prophetic dreams; and in the final book of the original run, ''The Mystery of the Cranky Collector'', a young woman's ghost returns to haunt her former employer's mansion.

Most mysteries were solved by Jupiter Jones, a supreme logician who implicitly used the [[Occam's Razor]] principle: that the simplest and most rational explanation should be preferred to an explanation which requires additional assumptions. The boys were able to solve their mysteries with relatively few resources: they generally had little more than a telephone, bicycles, access to a library and—with reference to the Hollywood setting of the series—a chauffeur-driven [[Rolls-Royce Limited|Rolls-Royce]] (which Jupiter wins the use of in the first book).

In the first book, ''[[The Secret of Terror Castle]]'', Jupiter bluffs his way into the office of director Alfred Hitchcock and makes a deal with him that if the Investigators can find him a haunted house to use as a location for his next movie, Hitchcock will introduce the story of their adventures. Hitchcock agrees, not expecting them to succeed; but at the end of the book is impressed with the boys' investigation and not only introduces the book but also refers several other future clients to them in subsequent novels. The last chapter of each book was usually an epilogue in which the investigators sat with Alfred Hitchcock (and later, Hector Sebastian), reviewing the mystery and revealing the deductions through the clues discussed earlier in the book.

In 1989, Random House revamped the series, naming it ''The 3 Investigators—Crimebusters Series''. The investigators were now 17 years old, could drive cars and were much more independent. The stories continued to include an abundance of detective work, but with the addition of more action. The series was well received but was halted during 1990, when legal disagreements between Random House and the heirs of the Arthur estate could not be resolved. By 2005, the disagreements were still not settled.

Eleven novels were published in the ''CrimeBusters'' series, which was initiated by one of the series' authors, William Arden, [[pseudonym]] of Dennis Lynds, who wrote the Dan Fortune mystery series for adults by the pseudonym [[Michael Collins (American author)|Michael Collins]]. The other authors were: H. William Stine and wife Megan Stine, [[G.H. Stone]] ([[Gayle Lynds]]), William MacCay, Marc Brandel and [[Peter Lerangis]]. Random House has reprinted several of the original books as two paperback reprint series, partly to assure their legal rights.

Between 1964 and 1990, Random House published a total of 56 books. After the discontinuation of the series in 1990, a German author team began writing new books under the commission of the [[Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co.|Franckh Kosmos]] publishing house in 1993. In 2011, three previously unpublished novels by the US authors Peter Lerangis, Megan and H. William Stine and G. H. Stone were published in Germany.