The Dana Girls

Last updated
The Dana Girls
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Stratemeyer Syndicate

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.

Contents

Characters

The series' principal characters are Louise and Jean Dana, teenage orphans who solve mysteries while attending the fictional Starhurst School for Girls in Penfield, not far from their hometown of Oak Falls. When on vacation, the girls stay at the home of their guardians, their uncle, Captain Ned Dana, master of the S.S. Balaska, and his spinster sister, Harriet Dana. The household also includes a bungling maid, the "buxom, red-cheeked" Cora Appel, often teasingly referred to as "Applecore" by Jean and Louise. Louise is seventeen at the beginning of the first novel. She is described as dark-haired, while her sister Jean is fair-haired. Louise is the more serious of the two, while Jean is described as "gay-hearted." [1] : 1–3, 5–6, 21  In the second book, Jean is described as being a year younger than Louise, with "blonde, boyish-cut hair" and with "laughter in her blue eyes and a humorous tilt to her nose." [2] : 1 

At school, the Dana girls are firmly under the control of the headmistress, Mrs. Crandall, who approves absences from class and other exceptions to the rules only when deemed absolutely necessary to the girls' detective work; however, as the series progresses and mysteries are solved to the benefit of the school, this becomes more and more frequent. One early example is Mrs. Crandall granting permission to the girls to conduct a search for a missing teacher, Miss Tisdale, in The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage. [2] : 12–13  Mrs. Crandall often volunteers herself or her husband to assist with investigations, either by driving them, chaperoning them, or at times, actively engaging in activity such as spying from horseback. Her husband, the bookish Mr. Crandall, is usually occupied in his study and generally takes no interest in administrative affairs, although he is considered an excellent teacher. It is rumored that Mr. Crandall is engaged in writing a monumental English-language history of Ancient Greece in five volumes [1] : 62  and he is usually left alone by the student body, but the Dana girls discover he can be a useful source of obscure facts relating to the clues in a mystery. He generally takes a less active role in sleuthing than his wife, acting as a driver, escort, or researching a clue academically. He is sometimes referred to, without explanation, as Professor Crandall. [1] : 215 

The Starhurst School for Girls is sited on the former Starr family estate; avenues cross a broad lawn to the former Starr mansion, which now serves as the school dormitory. The last remaining Starrs have fallen into poverty; elder brother Franklin Starr does what he can to ensure that younger sister Evelyn is at least able to attend school in the family's former home. [1] : 61, 73–4  When Franklin is unable to fund his sister's full tuition, Evelyn is reduced to waiting tables in the school dining hall in order to continue in attendance; this makes her the target of school bully Lettie Briggs, below. [1] : 150–51 

The Dana girls' principal recurring antagonists are the school bully, Lettie Briggs, the wealthiest girl at Starhurst, and her lackey, or shadow, Ina Mason, who is Lettie's only friend. [1] : 64  Lettie and Ina frequently attempt to solve the Dana girls' cases themselves while throwing their rivals off the scent; these attempts invariably fail and redound to Lettie and Ina's profound discredit. Lettie becomes angry in the first volume upon not receiving the room assignment of her choice, which is instead assigned to the Danas, [1] : 73–75  and serves as a rival (unsuccessfully) and prankster. Most of her pranks are to discredit the Danas scholastically, athletically, morally, or slander their detective skill. Lettie alters or steals school assignments, plagiarizes their work, destroys academic research, puts acid on Jean's towel before an athletic competition (to injure her hand), jeers/cheers against the Danas, short-laces shoes, hires a thug to disrupt an ice skating competition and winter carnival, and spreads rumors of all kinds about the Danas, along with making other character slurs. Incredibly, based upon their academic performance and favored status, Mrs. Crandall remains neutral, or at times, becomes angry with the Danas, and requires the sisters to make an explanation. In most circumstances, she is immediately satisfied with her investigation. This usually serves to delay Dana sleuthing, or to provide sub-plots with schoolgirl pranks in retaliation, on Lettie. Lettie, on the other hand, despite her disruptive, dishonest, and at times, actual criminal behavior, rarely receives due punishment. Lettie, despite receiving a large allowance, is miserly and invariably haggles; this costs her possession of the eponymous study lamp in the first volume in the series, By the Light of the Study Lamp. [1] : 71 

The girls drive a "family roadster" whose make is not specified in the early books. Typical for the time, it has a starter button on the floor. [1] : 11  This roadster is kept at Uncle Ned's house, and the girls do not drive it to school; instead, they take the train to and from campus, or else Uncle Ned comes and picks them up when he is not at sea. The girls know how to ride horses, and have access to horses kept in the school barn, and keep riding breeches in their room. [2] : 125–6  In one of their adventures, they ride in a rented boat piloted by their Uncle Ned. [2] : 173 

Series history

Readers of NANCY DREW need no assurance that the adventures of resourceful Louise Dana and her irrepressible sister Jean are packed with thrills, excitement, and mystery. Every girl will love these fascinating stories which tell how the Dana girls, like Nancy Drew herself, meet and match the challenge of each strange new mystery.

Blurb on the jacket flap of The Mysterious Fireplace

The Dana Girls series was created by Harriet Adams, who sought to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys series. [3] The series was produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager specializing in children's series books, and heavily marketed as similar to the Nancy Drew series; the same pseudonym, Carolyn Keene, was used for both.

All books in the series were published by Grosset & Dunlap and written by a number of ghostwriters under the supervision of the Syndicate. The first four titles were written by Leslie McFarlane, who also wrote 19 of the first 25 volumes in the Hardy Boys series. McFarlane, however, disliked the job intensely, [4] only writing the fourth volume after requesting and receiving a higher fee than usual. [5] He declined to write any further titles, writing afterwards that "starvation seemed preferable." [6] McFarlane's antipathy towards the series stemmed largely from his discomfort from writing about two girls under a female pseudonym. [7] Adams assigned the series next to Mildred Benson, who was also writing the Nancy Drew series. Benson also did not particularly enjoy writing the series, stating at one point that "I never felt the same kinship with the Danas that I did with Nancy." [8] Benson nonetheless wrote volumes 5 through 16 before Adams began writing the series in 1955 with The Ghost in the Gallery. Adams wrote all subsequent volumes in the series, although at least one other title, Strange Identities, was written by Harriet's daughter, Camilla McClave, but never published. The Thousand Islands Mystery is mentioned as the Danas next mystery, and "involves the sisters in a thrilling adventure in the nearby Thousand Islands Swamp".

. [9]

Publication history

The series went out of print twice before going out of print for a final time in 1979. The Dana Girls Mystery Stories began publication in 1934 and were discontinued in 1944. The series went back in print in 1949, although new titles were not published until 1952. At that time, the books' jacket art was updated, from stylized, art deco designs to pictures of the Dana Girls finding a clue or chasing a suspect. Although the art on many of these early volumes is less detailed than that of Nancy Drew and other Stratemeyer publications, the sisters are usually shown in a far more active role, rather than hiding and spying on the action. In 1962, the books were changed to picture cover format, but with the same artwork. [10]

The books have also been translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, German, and French. In Finland, girls have kept their original names. In Sweden, the Dana Girls are no longer Jean and Louise, but Mary and Lou. In France, they are known as Les Sœurs Parker ("The Parker Sisters"), Liz and Ann. In Germany, they are Barbie and Susan.

Critical assessment

Unlike Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls have garnered little critical attention. Some find the series simply uninteresting and argue that the Dana Girls series was not as successful as Nancy Drew at least in part because early series authors Leslie McFarlane and Mildred Benson were uninterested in their creations. [4] Others have called the characters "pallid followers in the dazzling train of Nancy Drew" [11] and suggest that the series was less successful than the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories because of its melding of the mystery story with the boarding school story, a genre that was "fading in popularity" even in the 1930s. [12] The combination of genres has also been called unsuccessful because "the school's presence weakens the mysteries, as the mysteries detract from the school story." [13]

Bobbie Ann Mason criticizes the series, The Secret of the Swiss Chalet in particular, for "[realizing] the authorized, glamourized dreams of our culture" [14] by having the Dana Girls live privileged lifestyles. Carolyn Carpan, in contrast, argues that series such as the Dana Girls that were begun around the time of the Great Depression portrayed heroines as unrealistically wealthy in order to fulfill readers' fantasies. [15] Carpan also argues that the Dana Girls' detective work was an outgrowth of the Depression in another way; many jobs and activities previously reserved for men were increasingly taken by women in 1930s due to economic necessity. [16]

Titles

First series

Second series

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Carolyn Keen (1934). By the Light of the Study Lamp . Dana Girls Mystery Stories. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Carolyn Keen (1934). The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage. Dana Girls Mystery Stories. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
  3. ↑ Rehak (2006), 162.
  4. 1 2 Nash (2006), 44.
  5. ↑ Greenwald (2004), 124-125.
  6. ↑ Greenwald (2004), 125.
  7. ↑ Nash (2006), 44.
  8. ↑ Quoted in Nash (2006), 45.
  9. 1 2 Moske (2000).
  10. ↑ White.
  11. ↑ Macleod (1995), 35.
  12. ↑ Siegel (1997), 165.
  13. ↑ Macleod (1995), 35-36.
  14. ↑ Mason (1995), 100.
  15. ↑ Carpan (2008), 50.
  16. ↑ Carpan (2008), 56.
  17. ↑ The end of the manuscript of The Strange Identities gives this as the title of the Dana Girls' next mystery. No further information on the title is available; a manuscript is not known to exist.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Drew</span> Fictional character in a juvenile mystery series

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. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mildred Benson</span> American writer (1905–2002)

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.

<i>The Bungalow Mystery</i> Nancy Drew 4, published 1930

The Bungalow Mystery is the third volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. It was the last of three books in the "breeder set" trilogy, released in 1930, to test-market the series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hardy Boys</span> Fictional detectives and book series

The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books were written by several ghostwriters, most notably Leslie McFarlane, under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin W. Dixon</span> House pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Dixon was also the writer attributed for the Ted Scott Flying Stories series, published by Grosset & Dunlap.

Charles Leslie McFarlane was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker, who is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series, using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

<i>The Hidden Window Mystery</i> 1956 novel by Carolyn Keene

The Hidden Window Mystery is the thirty-fourth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1956 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

<i>The Thirteenth Pearl</i> Book by Harriet Adams under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene

The Thirteenth Pearl is the fifty-sixth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1979 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. The Thirteenth Pearl is the end of the original 56-book series published by Grosset & Dunlap. Subsequent volumes were published by Simon & Schuster.

<i>By the Light of the Study Lamp</i> 1934 novel by Carolyn Keene

By the Light of the Study Lamp is the first book in The Dana Girls detective series, originally produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. It was issued in 1934, as part of a three-volume release in order to test the market for the series.

<i>Kay Tracey</i> Book series featuring girl detective

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.

<i>The Nancy Drew Files</i> Fiction series by Simon & Schuster

The Nancy Drew Files, or the Nancy Drew Case Files, is a detective fiction series started in 1986 and released by Simon & Schuster, New York. It is a spin-off of the original series of novels featuring Nancy Drew, with a greater emphasis on adventure, malice and romance. All the books have been written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. This series has been targeted at readers who are age eleven and up. With a new book released almost every month, 124 titles were released in 11 years. More than 17 million copies are in print and the books have appeared on the bestseller lists of Publishers Weekly, B. Dalton, and Waldenbooks. In 2014, Simon & Schuster started releasing this series in eBook format.

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories is the long-running "main" series of the Nancy Drew franchise, which was published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. There are 175 novels — plus 34 revised stories — that were published between 1930 and 2003 under the banner; Grosset & Dunlap published the first 56, and 34 revised stories, while Simon & Schuster published the series beginning with volume 57.

Nancy Drew on Campus is a series of twenty-five books published as a young adult spin-off from the long-running Nancy Drew mystery series. The series was published between 1995 and 1998 by Simon & Schuster's Young Adult imprint Simon Pulse and followed Nancy and her friends as they attended college and dealt with issues such as date rape and drug usage.

The Honey Bunch series of books were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's production of 20th century children's books featuring adventurous youngsters, which included the series Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins. This series was written under the pseudonym Helen Louise Thorndyke, and published for most of its duration by Grosset & Dunlap. The series began in 1923 and chronicled a young girl named Honey Bunch on her various trips and adventures. Along with Laura Lee Hope's series Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue, it was one of their most famous series for younger children.

<i>Confessions of a Teen Sleuth</i> Book by Chelsea Cain

Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody is a 2005 parody novel by American writer Chelsea Cain. The book is a parody of the Nancy Drew mystery series published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene and created by Edward Stratemeyer. The novel purports to be the true story of Nancy Drew, who claims that Keene was a former college roommate who plagiarized her life story while also misrepresenting Drew in the process. It incorporates characters from the mystery series while also including or mentioning characters from other series such as The Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and Encyclopedia Brown.

References


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.