Francis Joseph Hardy was born at Southern Cross in western Victoria and later moved with his family to Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne. His mother, Winifred, was a Roman Catholichis father, Thomas, a non-believer of Welsh and English descent. In 1931 Hardy left school, aged 14, and embarked upon a series of manual jobs. According to Hardy biographer Pauline Armstrong, "his first job was as a messenger and bottlewasher at the local chemist's shop" and then Hardy worked at the local grocer. He later also did manual work "in and around Bacchus Marsh in the milk factory, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and fruit". There is some debate among Hardy's biographers about the relative extent Hardy personally suffered from hardships during the 1930s depression. Hardy claimed himself that he left home when he was 13 because "his dad couldn't get the dole" with him at home.. However, Jim Hardy, Frank's eldest brother, wrote to the Melbourne Herald on 6 November 1983 to rebut this assertion, claiming that Frank had never had to leave homefurther noting that their "father never lost a day's work in his life". According to biographer Jenny Hocking in a more recent biography, Tom Hardy indeed did lose his job at a milk factory at the start of the Great Depression, and the family had had to move into a small rented house in Lerderderg Street. As a result of his experiences during the Depression, Hardy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939. According to Armstrong, Hardy enlisted in the Australian armed forces on 10 May 1943. He was later posted to Mataranka in the Northern Territory which was under "perpetual anticipation" of attack from the Japanese. Initially editing and writing a unit newspaper for the Australian army, he was employed as an artist for the army journal, Salt. He continued to work in journalism for most of his life. Although he opposed the foundation of the Australian Society of Authors for political reasons in 1963, he later joined the Society and served on its Management Committee. He played an active role in assisting the Gurindji people in the Gurindji strike in the mid to late 1960s. The documentary film THE UNLUCKY AUSTRALIANS featured Frank Hardy and the Gurindji people and was made by director producer John Goldschmidt and transmitted on the ITV Network in the UK by Associated television.

His most famous work, Power Without Glory, initially published by Hardy himself with the assistance of Communist Party members, was filmed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1976. The novel was a fictionalised version of the life of a Melbourne businessman, John Wren, and was set in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood). In 1950, Hardy was arrested for criminal libel and had to defend the book in a celebrated case shortly after the publication of Power Without Glory. Hardy detailed the case in his book The Hard Way.

Hardy was a member of the Realist Writers Group, which he represented at the Third World Youth Festival for Peace in Berlin. His sister, Mary Hardy, was a popular radio and television personality in the 1960s/1970s.

Frank Hardy died at his home in North Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, from a heart attack on 28 January 1994, aged 76. His cremated remains were interred at Fawkner Memorial Park.

Hardy's granddaughter Marieke Hardy is a writer in Melbourne, and his great grandson Jack, a young boy from the Central Coast.

• Power Without Glory, 1950. Reprint 2000 ISBN 0-522-84888-5
• The Four Legged Lottery 1958 ISBN 0-00-614501-9
• The Hard Way: The Story Behind Power without Glory, 1961. ISBN 0-00-614471-3
• Legends from Benson's Valley, 1963. ISBN 0-14-007504-6
• The Yarns of Billy Borker, 1965.
• Billy Borker Yarns Again, 1967.
• The Unlucky Australians, 1968. 1972 ISBN 0-7260-0012-4
• Outcasts of Foolgarah, 1971, ISBN 0-85887-000-2
• But the Dead Are Many: A Novel in Fugue Form, 1975, ISBN 0-370-10570-2
• The Needy and the Greedy: Humorous Stories of the Racetrack, 1975.
• The Obsession of Oscar Oswald, 1983, ISBN 0-9592104-1-5
• Who Shot George Kirkland? : A Novel About the Nature of Truth, 1981.
• Warrant of Distress, 1983.
• The Loser Now Will Be Later to Win, 1985.
• Mary Lives!, 1992 ISBN 0-868-19350-X .

Books about Frank Hardy

• Frank Hardy Politics Literature Life, Jenny Hocking, Lothian Books, South Melbourne: 2005; ISBN 0-7344-0836-6
• Frank Hardy and the Literature of Commitment, edited by Paul Adams & Christopher Lee is (The Vulgar Press, North Carlton, Victoria: 2003)
• Frank Hardy and the Making of Power without Glory, Pauline Armstrong (Melbourne University Press); ISBN 0-522-84888-5
• The Stranger From Melbourne: Frank Hardy - A Literary Biography 1944 - 1975, Paul Adams, University of West Australia Press: 1999 ISBN 1-876268-23-9