Nancy Drew
Nancy
Drew is a fictional character, a sleuth
in an American mystery
series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer
as the female counterpart to his Hardy
Boys series. The character first
appeared in 1930. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene.[1] Over the decades, the character evolved in response to
changes in US culture and tastes. The books were extensively revised and
shortened, beginning in 1959, in part to lower 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] The original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series started in 1930 and ended in 2003. Launched in 2004,
the 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 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.
Nancy Drew is featured in five films, three television shows, and a number of
popular computer games; she also appears in a variety of merchandise sold
around the world.
A
cultural icon, Nancy Drew is cited as a formative influence by a number
of 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 hero, an expression of wish fulfillment,[12] or an embodiment of contradictory ideas about femininity.[13]
The Nancy Drew character
Nancy
Drew is a fictional amateur sleuth. In the original versions of the series, she
is a 16-year-old high school graduate, and in later versions, is rewritten and
aged to be an 18-year-old high school graduate and detective. In the series,
she lives in the fictional town of River Heights[14] with her father, attorney Carson
Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah
Gruen.[15] As a child (age ten in the original versions and age three
in the later version), she loses her mother. Her loss is reflected in her early
independence—running a household since the age of ten with a clear-cut servant
in early series and deferring to the servant as a surrogate parent in later
ones. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries, some of which she
stumbles upon and some of which begin as cases of her father's. Nancy is often
assisted in solving mysteries by her two closest friends: cousins 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 Mata
Hari and as sweet as Betty
Crocker."[16] Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented:
At
sixteen she 'had studied psychology in school, and was familiar with the power
of suggestion and association.' Nancy was a fine painter, spoke French, and had
frequently run motor boats. 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, skillful oarsman, expert seamstress, 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]
Nancy
never lacks money, and in later volumes of the series often travels to faraway
locations, such as France
in The Mystery of the
99 Steps (1966), Nairobi in The Spider Sapphire
Mystery (1968), Austria in Captive
Witness (1981), Japan in The Runaway Bride (1994), Costa Rica in Scarlet Macaw Scandal (2004),
and Alaska in Curse of The Arctic Star (2013). Nancy is also
able to travel freely about the United States, thanks in part to her car, which
is a blue roadster
in the original series and a blue convertible
in the later books.[18] Despite the trouble and presumed expense to which she goes
to solve mysteries, Nancy never accepts monetary compensation; however, by
implication, her expenses are often paid by a client of her father's, as part
of the costs of solving one of his cases.[19]
Creation of character
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,[20] 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.[21]
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'."[22] Editors at Grosset & Dunlap preferred "Nan
Drew" of these options, but decided to lengthen "Nan" to
"Nancy".[23] 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.[24] Subsequent titles have been written by a number of
different ghostwriters, all under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.
The
first four titles were published in 1930 and were an immediate success. Exact
sales figures are not available for the years prior to 1979, but 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 the Nancy Drew is one of the most
important."[25] The 6,000 copies that Macy's ordered for the 1933 Christmas season sold out within days.[26] In 1934 Fortune
magazine 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."[27]
Evolution of character
See also: Category:Nancy Drew
characters
The
character of Nancy Drew has gone through many permutations over the years. The
Nancy Drew Mystery series was revised beginning in 1959;[28] with commentators agreeing that Nancy's character changed
significantly from the original Nancy of the books written in the 1930s and
1940s.[29] 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.[30] Nevertheless, some find no significant difference among the
permutations of Nancy Drew, finding Nancy to be simply a good role model for
girls.[31] 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."[32] 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."[33]
Other
commentators see Nancy as "a paradox—which may be why feminists can laud
her as a formative 'girl power' icon and conservatives can love her
well-scrubbed middle-class values."[34]
1930–1959: Early stories
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 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. Nancy Drew is depicted as an independent-minded 16-year-old who has
already completed her high school education (16 was the minimum age for
graduation at the time); the series also occurs over time, as she is 18 by the
early 1940s. Apparently affluent (her father is a successful lawyer), she
maintains an active social, volunteer, and sleuthing schedule, as well as
participating in athletics and the arts, but is never shown as working for a
living or acquiring job skills. Nancy is affected neither by the Great
Depression—although many of the characters in her early cases need assistance
as they are poverty-stricken—nor by World War II. Nancy lives with her lawyer
father, Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Mrs. Hannah Gruen. Some critics
prefer the Nancy of these volumes, largely written by Mildred Benson. Benson is
credited with "[breathing] ... a feisty spirit into Nancy's
character."[35] The original Nancy Drew is sometimes claimed "to be a
lot like [Benson] herself – confident, competent, and totally independent,
quite unlike the cardboard character that [Edward] Stratemeyer had
outlined."[36]
This
original Nancy is frequently outspoken and authoritative, so much so that
Edward Stratemeyer told Benson that the character was "much too flip, and
would never be well received."[37][38] The editors at Grosset & Dunlap disagreed,[39] but Benson also faced criticism from her next Stratemeyer
Syndicate editor, Harriet Adams, who felt that Benson should make Nancy's
character more "sympathetic, kind-hearted and lovable." Adams
repeatedly asked Benson to, in Benson's words, "make the sleuth less
bold ... 'Nancy said' became 'Nancy said sweetly,' 'she said kindly,' and
the like, all designed to produce a less abrasive, more caring type of
character."[40] Many readers and commentators, however, admire Nancy's
original outspoken character.[41]
A
prominent critic of the Nancy Drew character, at least the Nancy of these early
Nancy Drew stories,[42] is mystery writer Bobbie
Ann Mason. Mason contends that Nancy owes her
popularity largely to "the appeal of her high-class advantages."[43] Mason also criticizes the series for its racism and classism,[44] arguing that Nancy is the upper-class WASP defender of a "fading aristocracy, threatened by the
restless lower classes."[45] Mason further contends that the "most appealing
elements of these daredevil girl sleuth adventure books are (secretly) of this
kind: tea and fancy cakes, romantic settings, food eaten in quaint places
(never a Ho-Jo's),
delicious pauses that refresh, old-fashioned picnics in the woods, precious
jewels and heirlooms .... The word dainty is a subversive affirmation of a
feminized universe."[46]
At
bottom, says Mason, the character of Nancy Drew is that of a girl who is able
to be "perfect" because she is "free, white, and sixteen"[16] and whose "stories seem to satisfy two
standards – adventure and domesticity. But adventure is the
superstructure, domesticity the bedrock."[46]
Others
argue that "Nancy, despite her traditionally feminine attributes, such as
good looks, a variety of clothes for all social occasions, and an awareness of
good housekeeping, is often praised for her seemingly masculine traits ...
she operates best independently, has the freedom and money to do as she
pleases, and outside of a telephone call or two home, seems to live for solving
mysteries rather than participating in family life."[47]
1959–1979: Revisions at Grosset & Dunlap
At
the insistence of publishers Grosset & Dunlap, the Nancy Drew books were
revised beginning in 1959, both to make the books more modern and to eliminate
racist stereotypes.[48] 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] The series did not so much eliminate racial stereotypes,
however, as eliminate non-white characters altogether.[4] For example, in the original version of The Hidden Window Mystery (1956), Nancy visits friends in the south whose African-American servant, "lovable old Beulah ... serves squabs,
sweet potatoes, corn pudding, piping hot biscuits, and strawberry
shortcake."[49] The mistress of the house waits until Beulah has left the
room and then says to Nancy, "I try to make things easier for Beulah but
she insists on cooking and serving everything the old-fashioned way. I must
confess, though, that I love it."[50] In the revised 1975 version, Beulah is changed to Anna, a
"plump, smiling housekeeper".[51]
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.[35] Housekeeper Hannah Gruen, sent off to the kitchen in early
stories, became less a servant and more a mother surrogate.[52]
Critics
saw this Nancy of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s as an improvement in some ways, a
step back in others: "In these new editions, an array of elements had been
modified ... and most of the more overt elements of racism had been
excised. In an often overlooked alteration, however, the tomboyishness of the
text's title character was also tamed."[53]
Nancy
becomes much more respectful of male authority figures in the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s, leading some to claim that the revised Nancy simply becomes too
agreeable, and less distinctive, writing of her, "In the revised books,
Nancy is relentlessly upbeat, puts up with her father's increasingly protective
tendencies, and, when asked if she goes to church in the 1969 The Clue of the
Tapping Heels, replies, 'As often as I
can' ... Nancy learns to hold her tongue; she doesn't sass the dumb cops
like she used to."[54]
1980–2003: Continuing the original series
Harriet
Adams continued to oversee the series, after switching publishers to Simon
& Schuster, until her death in 1982. After her death, Adams' protégés,
Nancy Axelrad and Lilo Wuenn, and her three children, oversaw production of the
Nancy Drew books and other Stratemeyer Syndicate series. In 1985, the five sold
the Syndicate and all rights to Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster
turned to book packager Mega-Books for new writers.[55] These books 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.
1986–1997: Files, Super Mystery, and On
Campus
In
1985, as the sale of the Stratemeyer Syndicate to Simon & Schuster was
being 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. The books read drastically different from the
preceding novels of the past 55 years. For example, The Phantom of Venice
(1985) opens with Nancy wondering in italics, "Am I or am I not in love
with Ned Nickerson?"[56] Nancy begins dating other young men and acknowledges sexual
desires: "'I saw [you kissing him] ... You don't have to apologize to
me if some guy turns you on.' 'Gianni doesn't turn me on! ... Won't
you please let me explain.'"[57] The next year, Simon & Schuster launched the first
Nancy Drew spin-off, titled The Nancy Drew Files.
The
Nancy Drew character of the Files series has earned mixed reviews among
fans. Some contend that Nancy's character becomes "more like Mildred Wirt
Benson's original heroine than any [version] since 1956."[58] Others criticize the series for its increasing incorporation
of romance and "[dilution] of pre-feminist moxie."[59] 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 male in the
background, and frequently appears aware of and interested in that male. Nancy
also becomes more vulnerable, being often chloroformed into unconsciousness, or defenseless against chokeholds.[60] The books place more emphasis on violence and character
relationships, with Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson becoming a more on-off couple,
and both having other love interests that can span multiple books.
The
Files also launched its own spin off. A crossover spin-off series with The
Hardy Boys, titled the Super
Mystery series, began in 1988. These books
were in continuity with the similar Hardy Boys spin-off, The Hardy Boys Casefiles.
In
1995, Nancy Drew finally goes to college in the Nancy Drew on Campus series. These books read more similar to soap opera books,
such as the Sweet Valley High series. The On Campus books focus more on romance
plots, and also centered around other characters; the mysteries were merely
used as subplots. By reader request, Nancy broke off her long-term relationship
with boyfriend Ned Nickerson in the second volume of the series, On Her Own
(1995).[35][61] Similar to the Files series, reception for the On
Campus series was also mixed, with some critics viewing the inclusion of
adult themes such as date rape "unsuccessful".[62][63] Carolyn Carpan commented that the series was "more
soap opera romance than mystery" and that Nancy "comes across as
dumb, missing easy clues she wouldn't have missed in previous series".[64] The series was also criticized for focusing more on romance
than on grades or studying, with one critic stating that the series resembled
collegiate academic studying in the 1950s, where "women were more
interested in pursuing ... the "MRS" degree."[65]
In
1997, Simon & Schuster announced a mass cancellation of Nancy Drew and
Hardy Boys spin-offs, except ones for younger children. The Files series
ran until the end of 1997, while both the Super Mystery and on Campus
series ran until the beginning of 1998.
2003–2012: Girl Detective and graphic novels
See also: Girl
Detective
In
2003, publishers Simon & Schuster ended the original Nancy Drew series and
began featuring Nancy's character in a new mystery series, Girl Detective.
The Nancy Drew of the Girl Detective series drives a hybrid car, uses a
mobile phone, and recounts her mysteries in the first person. Many applaud
these changes, arguing that Nancy has not really changed at all other than
learning to use a cell phone.[66] Others praise the series as more realistic; Nancy, these commentators
argue, is now a less-perfect and therefore more likable being, one whom girls
can more easily relate to – a better role model than the old Nancy because
she can actually be emulated, rather than a "prissy automaton of
perfection."[67]
Some,
mostly fans, vociferously lament the changes, seeing Nancy as a silly,
air-headed girl whose trivial adventures (discovering who squished the zucchini
in 2004's Without a Trace) "hold a shallow mirror to a pre-teen's
world."[68] Leona Fisher argues that the new series portrays an
increasingly white River Heights, partially because "the clumsy
first-person narrative voice makes it nearly impossible to interlace external
authorial attitudes into the discourse", while it continues and worsens
"the implicitly xenophobic cultural representations of racial, ethnic, and
linguistic others" by introducing gratuitous speculations on characters'
national and ethnic origins.[69]
The
character is also the heroine of a series of graphic
novels, begun in 2005 and produced by
Papercutz. The graphic novels are written by Stefan
Petrucha and illustrated in manga-style artwork by Sho Murase. The character's graphic novel
incarnation has been described as "a fun, sassy, modern-day teen who is
still hot on the heels of criminals."[70]
When
the 2007 film was released, a non-canon novelization of the movie was written
to look like the older books. A new book was written for each of the Girl
Detective and Clue Crew series, both of which deal with a mystery on
a movie set. In 2008, the Girl Detective series was re-branded into
trilogies with a model on the cover. These mysteries became deeper, with the
mystery often spread across three books, and multiple culprits. These trilogies
also met with negative fan reception due to Nancy's constant mistakes,
shortness of the books, and lack of action. With the new trilogy format, sales
began slipping. In 2010, Simon & Schuster then cut back from six Nancy
Drew books per year, to four books per year. In December 2011, they finally
announced that the series was cancelled along with the Hardy Boys Undercover
Brothers series.
2013–present: Diaries
![[icon]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
With
the sudden cancellation of the Girl Detective series, the Diaries
series began in 2013. The series is similar to its predecessor, in that the
books are narrated in first person, Nancy is still absent-minded and awkward,
and references are made to pop culture and technology.
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