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. 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.
Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was an American journalist and writer of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, Carolyn Keene, from 1929 to 1953 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, which were bestsellers.
Carolyn Keene is the pseudonym of the authors of the Nancy Drew mystery stories and The Dana Girls mystery stories, both produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In addition, the Keene pen name is credited with the Nancy Drew spin-off, River Heights, and the Nancy Drew Notebooks.
The Stratemeyer Syndicate was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. It published and contracted the many pseudonymous authors who wrote the series from 1899 to 1987, when it was sold to Simon & Schuster.
The Dana Girls was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, are teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while at boarding school. The series was created in 1934 in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys series, but was less successful than either. The series was written by a number of ghostwriters and, despite going out-of-print twice, lasted from 1934 to 1979; the books have also been translated into a number of other languages. While subject to less critical attention than either Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, a number of critics have written about the series, most arguing that the Dana Girls' relative lack of success was due to the more dated nature of the series.
The Hidden Staircase is the second volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, published in 1930 and revised in 1959. The original text was written by Mildred Wirt Benson, and she has said that it is her personal favorite of the Nancy Drew Books she wrote.
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many books in the Nancy Drew series, using characters invented by her father, Edward Stratemeyer. Adams also oversaw other ghostwriters who wrote for these and many other series as a part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and oversaw the rewriting of many of the novels to update them starting in the late 1950s.
The Mystery at Lilac Inn is the fourth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1930 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Mildred Wirt Benson was the ghostwriter of the 1930 edition.
The Secret at Shadow Ranch is the fifth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1931 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, and was ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson. This book, as of 2001, ranks 50 on the list of All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, according to Publishers Weekly, with 2,347,750 sales since 1931.
The Clue in the Diary is the seventh volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, and was first published in 1932 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Its text was revised in 1962.
Nancy's Mysterious Letter is the eighth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1932 and was penned by Walter Karig, a replacement writer for Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson declined series work when the Depression forced a reduction in the contract fee provided to Stratemeyer Syndicate writers, so Karig, already an established Stratemeyer writer, took over the authorship. Due to Karig having died in 1956, the 1932 version passed into the public domain in Canada and other countries that have a life plus 50 policy, in 2007.
The Whispering Statue is the fourteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was written by Mildred Wirt Benson, whom many readers and scholars consider the "truest" of the numerous Carolyn Keene ghostwriters, following an outline by Harriet Stratemeyer. The book was originally published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1937. An updated, revised, and largely different story was published under the same title in 1970.
The Mystery of the Ivory Charm is the thirteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1936 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Quest of the Missing Map is the nineteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1942 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Clue in the Crumbling Wall is the twenty-second volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1945 under Carolyn Keene, a pseudonym of the ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Mystery of the Tolling Bell is the twenty-third volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1946 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Ghost of Blackwood Hall is the twenty-fifth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1948 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Haunted Bridge is the fifteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was originally published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1937. It was written by Mildred A. Wirt Benson. Its text was revised and published in 1972 by Priscilla Baker-Carr.
The Kay Tracey Mysteries were published under the name Frances K. Judd, a house pseudonym of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager. The series was conceived as a response to the popularity of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and likewise features a teenage girl detective. While the original entries in the series lasted only from 1934 to 1942, the books were updated, revised, and have been re-issued numerous times, most recently by Bantam Books in the 1980s, and have been translated into Swedish and French. Many critics see Kay Tracey as markedly inferior to Nancy Drew, but some find the series to be significant as one of a number of series that provided girls with a feminist role model prior to third-wave feminism.
Nancy Drew is a 2002 American television film directed by James Frawley and written by Ami Canaan Mann. It stars Maggie Lawson as teen sleuth Nancy Drew, who heads off to college and finds yet another mystery to solve. The film first aired on December 15, 2002, on ABC.
