Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene.Peters (2007), 542. Created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the book-packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate, 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,Rehak (2006), 243. with arguable success.Nash (2006), 55.Rehak (2006), 248. In the revision process, the heroine's original character was changed to be less unruly and violent.Lapin (1989). 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.Leigh Brown (1993), 1D. 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.Stowe (1999).
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, 34 video games produced by the brand HeR Interactive, and two comic-book series. Film and television adaptations of the character have been met with mixed reviews, and 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,Inness (1997), 79. 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'ConnorMcFeatters (2005), 36. and Sonia Sotomayor to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham ClintonBurrell (2007). and former First Lady Laura Bush.Argetsinger and Roberts (2007), C03. Feminist literary critics have analyzed the character's enduring appeal, arguing variously that Nancy Drew is a mythic heroine, an expression of wish fulfillment,Sherrie A. Inness writes that in "many respects, Nancy Drew exists as a wish fulfillment." See Inness (1997), 175. or an embodiment of contradictory ideas about femininity.Chamberlain (1994).
Characteristics Nancy Drew is a fictional amateur detective. She is originally depicted as a blonde-haired and blue-eyed 16-year-old high school graduate, but in later editions is rewritten as a titian-haired and blue-eyed 18-year-old graduate and detective. In the series, she lives in the fictional town of River HeightsFisher (2004), 71. with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen.Macleod (1995), 31. Carson is very successful in his job, and is often called away on business for days or even weeks at a time, leaving Nancy on her own—and when this happens, he is always shown to have complete faith and trust in Nancy's ability to look after herself, and to solve mysteries. Nancy for her part is very proud of her father and his work, and is unshakable in her respect and admiration for him. She loses her mother at the age of ten in the original versions and at the age of three in the later version. This loss is reflected in her early independence—running a household since the age of ten with Hannah clearly identified as a servant in the earlier series, who is however later referred to as a surrogate parent. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries; some she stumbles upon, and some begin as cases of her father's.
In the opening volumes, Nancy's closest friend is the somewhat flighty but fun-loving Helen Corning, but this character is quickly supplanted by the fifth book by her two long-term closest friends, cousins Elizabeth "Bess" Marvin and George Fayne. Bess is delicate and feminine, while George is a tomboy. The two are very much opposites, although both are both loyal to Nancy, and usually end up assisting her in the solving of whatever mystery is at hand—Bess much more so than Helen, who is only glimpsed very, very occasionally in later volumes. Nancy is also occasionally joined by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson, a student at Emerson College, who is introduced in the seventh book.
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."Mason (1995), 50. Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented:
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), Lima in The Clue in the Crossword Cipher (1967), Nairobi in The Spider Sapphire Mystery (1968), Istanbul in "The Mysterious Mannequin" (1970), 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.Inness (1997), 91. 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.Keene (1961), 198.
The character of Nancy Drew has gone through many permutations over the years. The Nancy Drew mystery series was revised beginning in 1959,Dyer and Romanov (1995), 194. with commentators agreeing that Nancy's character changed significantly from the original Nancy of the books written in the 1930s and 1940s.See, for example, Betsy Caprio, Geoffrey Lapin, Karen Plunkett-Powell, and Melanie Rehak. 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.See, for example, Maureen Corrigan, Catherine Foster. Nevertheless, some find no significant difference among the permutations of Nancy Drew, finding Nancy to be simply a good role model for girls.See, for example, Gerstel (2007), Kismaric & Heiferman (2007), and Plunkett-Powell (1993).
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."Plunkett-Powell (1993), 55. 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."Kismaric & Heiferman (2007), 8.
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."O'Rourke (2004).
Creation
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,Johnson (1982), xxvi. 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.Johnson (1993), 12.
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.'"Rehak (2006), 113–14. Editors at Grosset & Dunlap preferred "Nan Drew" of these options, but decided to lengthen "Nan" to "Nancy".Rehak (2006), 113. 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.Carpan (2008), 50. 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."Quoted in Rehak (2006), 121.
The 6,000 copies that Macy's ordered for the 1933 Christmas season sold out within days.Kismaric and Heiferman (2007), 27. 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."Quoted in Plunkett-Powell (1993), 18.
History 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 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.
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). While the first four books of the series are noted for their strong continuity and sense of passing seasons and time, it is lost throughout the series with changes like Nancy's hair color being changed to titian. Her age is changed from 16 to 18 in book 31, The Ringmaster's Secret (1953), with no in-universe explanation. 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 World War II.
Nancy lives with her lawyer father, Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, 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."Fisher, "Nancy Drew, Sleuth." 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."Kismaric & Heiferman (2007), 24.