Here’s another success born during The first Great Depression: Nancy Drew. This breakthrough girl detective series, will turn 80 years old in 2010. After all this time, Nancy is still going gangbusters. While some people might have dismissed Nancy as a dilettante in the past, Nancy has long proved them wrong. Nancy Drew has long been a favorite of strong girls who who grew up to become strong women, like Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Sonya Sotomayor, Supreme Court nominee. Nancy Drew made a strong early impression on many.
Despite the age of the books, The Nancy Drew mystery books are attracting another generation of young and adolescent girls excited to read about a young woman (variously sometimes 16 and sometimes 18 years old) who can do anything. Nothing seems too much for Nancy Drew: car repair, map reading, skiing, piloting a sailboat, all literally a piece of cake (no doubt Nancy can also bake up a storm or at least a torte) . Nancy is versatile: she cracks codes and she knows how to work her way out of trouble (and a car trunk) without the help of a man. In fact, it’s often the other way around with Nancy. She’s usually helping her boyfriend or her father. It’s hard to believe that this forward-thinking & doing Nancy Drew was conceived by a conservative male. His name was Edward Stratemeyer, a publisher and syndicator in the early 1900s. Following the success of his Hardy Boys mystery series, which he created, he decided to introduce a heroine, since so many girls were reading his books. It’s unclear who wrote the first Nancy Drew books, but Stratemeyer and other ghost writers wrote under the name, Carolyn Keene. After Stratemeyer died in 1930 (soon after Nancy Drew was born), both male and female authors continued to write as Keene - among them Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote 23 of the books. A licensed pilot and the first woman to receive a master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Iowa, Benson ironically became a role model for her protagonist, Nancy Drew. Here are some additional facts(oidz) about Nancy Drew:
- About 80 million copies of the books have been sold to date. They have been translated into at least dozens of languages.
- There have been five films about Nancy Drew, and the latest is still in development, tentatively announced for later this year or next . The four older films (1938-39) starred Bonita Granville; the newer one, Emma Roberts. The most recent Nancy Drew film, like the last of the old Granville movies, was roundly criticized. But many younger girls loved it.
-Early Nancy Drew books have value. The most valuable (and rare) Nancy Drew books are those dating from 1930-32. Rare book dealers say these books, even without their jackets, are scarce. if you run across some books from these years, check to see if the endpapers (the papers on the inside of the covers and the first and last free pages) are blank. If so, you have a rare volume. See my 1942 first edition below; it has no jacket, and the illustration and date (WWII era) make if of some interest. It is worth around $25.
-Nancy Drew’s best friends are so Right Now, circa 2009. Nancy’s best friends are Bess and George (both girls). Bess is a bit of a flirt, always interested in fashion and usually on a diet. She is rather shy. Her cousin, George, is the bold one: a tomboy athlete, somewhat androgynous and nicknamed for a boy. They reflect two sides of Nancy Drew, but they always remain her side-kicks.
- Nancy has a dog, Togo, and a cat, Snowball. Since her mother died when she was young (some of the books say when Nancy was 10), under her criminal attorney father’s watchful eye, she grew up independent and brave. The stories begin when Nancy, no longer in high school, follows her investigative passion and begins to solve mysteries.
-Nancy lives in River Heights (no state named), tree-lined suburbia in Middle America. Some people think Iowa; some people say Illinois; some even guess New Jersey, the home of Nancy Drew supporter/publisher Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Currently, River Heights is said to be located near Chicago.
-Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy Drew’s creator, also created The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and The Bobbsey Twins. Like Carolyn Keene, there is no Laura Lee Hope. This was a name used by a stable of ghost writers to turn out books in the Bobbsey Twin series. Prior to his death, Stratemeyer had established a successful publishing syndicate, turning out quality books for children and employing many anonymous writers. In 1930, his daughters took over the business and Nancy Drew-like continued to run it successfully.
While many characters and heroines developed in the 1930s are dated and uninteresting to contemporary readers, Nancy Drew and her strength, determination and mastery are still thrilling and delighting young female readers today. Repeatedly updated over the past 80 years to reflect the changes in 
culture and society, the original Nancy Drew character still stands head and shoulders above many female detectives who followed in her flats and heels.
Happy Birthday, Nancy!
