Series background
The Nancy Drew Files is a spin-off from the Nancy Drew series. The stories follow teenage detective Nancy Drew. Her father, Carson Drew, is a successful attorney and a widower. Their house is taken care of by their full-time housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. Nancy's companions are usually her friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne, no matter whether she is sleuthing or shopping. Her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson also helps her with investigations. Contrary to their stable relationship in the original Nancy Drew series, Nancy and Ned's relationship is given more depth, and the two are portrayed as a somewhat dysfunctional couple. They break-up and reconcile multiple times throughout the series. But in the last book of this series, it is shown that they kept dating each other.
Notable books
- Secrets Can Kill (#1), Stay Tuned for Danger (#17), Death by Design (#30), and The Final Scene (#38) were all adapted into the popular Nancy Drew video game series by Her Interactive.
- Two Points to Murder (#8) features the first break-up between Nancy and Ned.
- Till Death Do Us Part (#24) sees Ned Nickerson proposing to Nancy, although she turns him down.
- The Suspect Next Door (#39) launched a spin-off of The Nancy Drew Files series, titled River Heights . However, that series was a romance series, with occasional cameos by Nancy.
- All books from #112 (For Love or Money) to #119 (Against the Rules) feature stills from the 1995 television adaption as the covers.
Development
The Nancy Drew Files is the first spin-off from the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. The series was developed by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, in its final year. The series was first introduced in two books from the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, #77: The Bluebeard Room, and #78: The Phantom of Venice. These two books were much more modern and serious, while also featuring romance. These two books were the final books overseen by the Syndicate, prior to its sale to Simon & Schuster in 1986. The publishers soon launched The Nancy Drew Files concurrent to the original series, to aim for more mature readers.
The series is known as the most successful spin-off of the original book series, and also inspired a similar spin-off for The Hardy Boys. In 1995, the series reduced its release rate in half, by beginning to release a book every other month, instead of every month. Finally, the series was cancelled in 1997, in a mass cancellation of all mature-themed Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys spin-offs.
Television adaptation
The 1995 television adaption, Nancy Drew, was based on The Nancy Drew Files. The adaption had very little to do with The Nancy Drew Files series, other than its modern and trendy setting, more mature themes, and Nancy and Ned's relationship issues. The series featured a college-aged Nancy, who moved to New York City, to attend college and live with Bess (who was an advice columnist) and George (a mail carrier, and amateur filmmaker). The series was produced by Canadian production company Nelvana, and filmed in Toronto (with an arc in Paris).
The series' stars — Tracy Ryan, Jhene Erwin, and Joy Tanner — were featured on the covers of the books, which were promotional stills of the television series. The promotion began on the 112th book, For Love or Money, and continued until book 119, Against The Rules. Ironically, For Love or Money was released the month the last episode of the series aired. By the time the books stopped the promotion, the television series had been cancelled for over a year (and in another twist of irony, The Nancy Drew Files would also be cancelled that same year).
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.
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 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.
The Clue of the Velvet Mask is the thirtieth volume in the original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was Mildred Benson's final ghostwrite for the series. The plot and story take place largely in Nancy's hometown of River Heights. Nancy tries to solve a mystery about a gang of event thieves robbing homes during parties, lectures, musicals, and other social occasions planned or catered by Lightner's Entertainment Company. Much of the original story contains elements of dramatic crime dramas; the villains are darker in tone than many other entries in the series.
Nancy Drew is a 2007 American mystery comedy film loosely based on the series of mystery novels about the titular teen detective of the same name by Edward Stratemeyer. It stars Emma Roberts as Nancy Drew, with Josh Flitter and Max Thieriot. Directed by Andrew Fleming, the film follows Nancy Drew (Roberts) as she moves to Los Angeles with her father Carson on an extended business trip and stumbles across evidence of an unsolved mystery involving the death of a murdered movie star, prompting Nancy to solve the cold case. It was released in theaters on June 15, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures. Critical reactions were mixed, but the film grossed $30 million worldwide on a $20 million budget.
Nancy Drew: Girl Detective is a 2004–2012 book series which replaced the long-running Nancy Drew mystery series. This new series is written in first person narration, from Nancy's point of view, and features updated versions of the main Nancy Drew characters. New secondary characters are introduced to populate River Heights and appear over multiple books, adding a framework to Nancy's world.
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is an American television mystery series based on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew juvenile novels. The series, which ran from January 30, 1977, to January 14, 1979, was produced by Glen A. Larson from Universal Television for ABC. Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy starred as amateur detective brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, while Pamela Sue Martin starred as amateur sleuth Nancy Drew.
The Ringmaster's Secret is the thirty-first volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in late 1953 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.
Ned Nickerson is a fictional character in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the collective pseudonym "Carolyn Keene". Ned is often referred to as Nancy Drew's boyfriend. He first appears in The Clue in the Diary, the seventh volume in the series.
Captive Witness is the 64th volume in the Nancy Drew Stories series. It was originally published in 1981 by the Wanderer imprint of Simon & Schuster and ghostwritten by Richard Ballard. Scholastic also released a version of the book, titled as Captive Witness Mystery. The original edition cover was by Ruth Sanderson, with six internal illustrations by Paul Frame.
Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull is the 17th installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. It is available for play on Microsoft Windows platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled The Mardi Gras Mystery (1988).
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.
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase is a 1939 American mystery film directed by William Clemens and written by Kenneth Garnet. It is the fourth and final film in the original Nancy Drew film series and a sequel to Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939). The film stars Bonita Granville as teenage amateur detective Nancy Drew, Frankie Thomas as her boyfriend, and John Litel as her father. It was loosely based on the novel of the same name by Mildred Wirt Benson. The film was released by Warner Bros. on September 9, 1939.
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.
Nancy Drew is an American mystery drama television series based on the series of mystery novels about the titular character. The series was adapted for the CW by Noga Landau, Josh Schwartz, and Stephanie Savage and is produced by CBS Studios, in association with Fake Empire.
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.
