Nancy Drew 32

[Shari Alvine]

Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene.[1] Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.

Over the decades, the character has evolved in response to changes in American culture and tastes. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised and shortened, partly to lower the printing costs,[2] with arguable success.[3][4] In the revision process, the heroine's original character was changed to be less unruly and violent.[5] In the 1980s, an older and more professional Nancy emerged in a new series, The Nancy Drew Files, that included romantic subplots for the sleuth.[6] Launched in 2004, the Nancy Drew: Girl Detective series features Nancy driving a hybrid electric vehicle and using a cell phone. In 2012, the Girl Detective series ended, and a new series, Nancy Drew Diaries, was launched in 2013. Illustrations of the character evolved over time to reflect contemporary styles.[7]

The Nancy Drew franchise has been adapted into other forms of media with varied success. As of April 2020, the character has been adapted into six feature films, three television series, four television pilots, 33 video games produced by the brand HeR Interactive, and two different comic book series. Film and television adaptations of the character have been met with mixed reviews, while the video games by HeR Interactive have often been lauded. The character proves continuously popular worldwide; at least 80 million copies of the books have been sold,[8] and the books have been translated into over 45 languages.

A cultural icon, Nancy Drew is cited as a formative influence by several women, from Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor[9] and Sonia Sotomayor to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton[10] and former First Lady Laura Bush.[11] Feminist literary critics have analyzed the character's enduring appeal, arguing variously that Nancy Drew is a mythic heroine, an expression of wish fulfillment,[12] or an embodiment of contradictory ideas about femininity.[13]

Nancy is often assisted in solving mysteries by her two closest friends, cousins Elizabeth "Bess" Marvin and George Fayne. Bess is delicate and feminine, while George is a tomboy. Nancy is also occasionally joined by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson, a student at Emerson College.

Nancy is often described as a super girl. In the words of Bobbie Ann Mason, she is "as immaculate and self-possessed as a Miss America on tour. She is as cool as a Rock Star and as sweet as Betty Crocker."[16] Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented:

At sixteen, she 'had studied psychology after and in school, and was familiar with the power of suggestion and association.' Nancy was a fine painter, spoke French, and had frequently run motorboats. She was a skilled driver who, at sixteen, 'flashed into the garage with a skill born of long practice.' The prodigy was a sure shot, an excellent swimmer, a skillful oarsman, an expert seamstress, a gourmet cook, and a fine bridge player. Nancy brilliantly played tennis and golf and rode like a cowboy. Nancy danced like Ginger Rogers and could administer first aid like the Mayo brothers.[17]

The character of Nancy Drew has gone through many permutations over the years. The Nancy Drew mystery series was revised beginning in 1959,[20] with commentators agreeing that Nancy's character changed significantly from the original Nancy of the books written in the 1930s and 1940s.[21] Observers also often see a difference between the Nancy Drew of the original series, the Nancy of The Nancy Drew Files, and the Nancy of Girl Detective series.[22] Nevertheless, some find no significant difference among the permutations of Nancy Drew, finding Nancy to be simply a good role model for girls.[23]

Despite revisions, "What hasn't changed, however, are [Nancy's] basic values, her goals, her humility, and her magical gift for having at least nine lives. For more than six decades, her essence has remained intact."[24] Nancy is a "teen detective queen" who "offers girl readers something more than action-packed adventure: she gives them something original. Convention has it that girls are passive, respectful, and emotional, but with the energy of a girl shot out of a cannon, Nancy bends conventions and acts out every girl's fantasies of power."[25]

The character was conceived by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In 1926, Stratemeyer created the Hardy Boys series (although the first volumes were not published until 1927), which was such a success that he decided on a similar series for girls, featuring an amateur girl detective as the heroine. While Stratemeyer believed that a woman's place was in the home,[27] he was aware that the Hardy Boys books were popular with girl readers and wished to capitalize on girls' interest in mysteries by offering a strong female heroine.[28]

Stratemeyer initially pitched the new series to Hardy Boys publishers Grosset & Dunlap as the "Stella Strong Stories," adding that "they might also be called 'Diana Drew Stories,' 'Diana Dare Stories,' 'Nan Nelson Stories,' 'Nan Drew Stories,' or 'Helen Hale Stories.'"[29] Editors at Grosset & Dunlap preferred "Nan Drew" of these options, but decided to lengthen "Nan" to "Nancy".[30] Stratemeyer accordingly began writing plot outlines and hired Mildred Wirt, later Mildred Wirt Benson, to ghostwrite the first volumes in the series under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.[31] Subsequent titles have been written by several ghostwriters under the same pseudonym.

The first four titles were published in 1930 and were an immediate success. Exact sales figures are not available for the years before 1979. Still, an indication of the books' popularity can be seen in a letter that Laura Harris, a Grosset and Dunlap editor, wrote to the Syndicate in 1931: "Can you let us have the manuscript as soon as possible, and no later than July 10? There will only be three or four titles brought out then, and Nancy Drew is one of the most important."[32]

The 6,000 copies that Macy's ordered for the 1933 Christmas season sold out within days.[33] In 1934, Fortune featured the Syndicate in a cover story and singled Nancy Drew out for particular attention: "Nancy is the greatest phenomenon among all the fifty-centers. She is a best seller. How she crashed a Valhalla that had been rigidly restricted to the male of her species is a mystery even to her publishers."[34]

The earliest Nancy Drew books were published as dark-blue hardcovers with the titles stamped in orange lettering with dark-blue outlines and no other images on the cover. The covers went through several changes in the early years: leaving the orange lettering with no outline and adding an orange silhouette of Nancy peering through a magnifying glass; then changing to a lighter blue board with dark blue lettering and silhouette; then changing the position of the title and silhouette on the front with black lettering and a more "modern" silhouette.[35]

At the insistence of publishers Grosset & Dunlap, the Nancy Drew books were revised in 1959 to make them more modern and eliminate racist stereotypes.[49] Although Harriet Adams felt that these changes were unnecessary, she oversaw a complete overhaul of the series, as well as writing new volumes in keeping with the new guidelines laid down by Grosset & Dunlap.[2]

Many other changes were relatively minor. The new books were bound in yellow with color illustrations on the front covers. Nancy's age was raised from 16 to 18, her mother was said to have died when Nancy was three, rather than ten, and other small changes were made.[36] Housekeeper Hannah Gruen, sent off to the kitchen in early stories, became less a servant and more a mother surrogate.[53]

Harriet Adams continued to oversee the series until she died in 1982. After her death, Adams' protgs, Nancy Axelrad and Lilo Wuenn, and her three children oversaw the Nancy Drew books and other Stratemeyer Syndicate series production. In 1985, the five sold the Syndicate and all rights to Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster turned to book packager Mega-Books for new writers.[56] These books[which?] continued to have the characters solve mysteries in the present day while still containing the same basic formula and style of the books during the Syndicate.[original research?]

In 1985, as the sale of the Stratemeyer Syndicate to Simon & Schuster was finalized, Simon & Schuster wanted to launch a spin-off series that focused on more mature mysteries and incorporated romance into the stories. To test whether this would work, the final two novels before the sale, The Bluebeard Room and The Phantom of Venice, were used as backdoor pilots for the new series.[citation needed]

The next year, Simon & Schuster launched the first Nancy Drew spin-off, titled The Nancy Drew Files. However, after the above-mentioned two Mystery Stories books, as implied in The Double Horror of Fenley Place, Nancy appears to be dating Ned again and the series continues without any reference to Nancy dating other guys in The Bluebeard Room or in The Phantom of Venice.[citation needed]

The Nancy Drew character in the Files series has earned mixed reviews among fans. Some, including sex-positive feminists, contend that Nancy's character becomes "more like Mildred Wirt Benson's original heroine than any [version] since 1956."[59] Others criticize the series for its increasing incorporation of romance and "[dilution] of pre-feminist moxie."[60]

One reviewer noticed, "Millie [Mildred Wirt Benson] purists tend to look askance upon the Files series, in which fleeting pecks bestowed on Nancy by her longtime steady, Ned Nickerson, give way to lingering embraces in a Jacuzzi."[6] Cover art for Files titles, such as Hit and Run Holiday (1986), reflects these changes; Nancy is often dressed provocatively, in short skirts, shirts that reveal her stomach or cleavage, or a bathing suit. She is often pictured with an attentive, handsome boy in the background and frequently appears aware of and interested in that boy.[original research?]

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