Nancy Drew is a teenage detective with a love for solving mysteries. The book series has been in print since the 1930s and has undergone changes over time. Nancy has two best friends, a boyfriend, and lives with her father and housekeeper. The books were written by ghostwriters under the supervision of Harriet Adams. Currently, the series is only in print as a graphic novel.
Nancy Drew is the fictional star of the Nancy Drew book series of the same name. She is characterized as a blue-eyed, Titian-haired teenage detective with a penchant for detective work, and she resides in the upper-class town of Riverside Heights.
The Nancy Drew books have been in print since the 1930s, making it one of the longest running series of books to be published. The character herself has changed over the decades, though the basic premise of a young girl solving mysteries and crimes remains the same.
In the first books that appeared in the 1930s, Nancy Drew was sixteen years old and obviously well off. She was also a bit bossy and reckless, and she even carried and used a gun. This was later revised to fit the now-standard mold of Nancy Drew as a more typical, if still quite privileged, eighteen-year-old American girl.
Nancy Drew has two best friends, boy-crazed Bess Marvin and tomboyish George Fayne, and a boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. She lives with her father, a lawyer named Carson Drew, and a housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, who is something of a mother figure in her life.
The Nancy Drew books are all credited to one author, Carolyn Keene. Carolyn Keene herself, however, is fictional. The books were first conceived, though not written, by Edward Stratemeyer in 1930. Stratemeyer wrote an outline, but the actual writing of the first novel was done by Mildred Benson. Stratemeyer’s daughter Harriet Adams edited the work. It was later revealed that Mildred Benson wrote the first 22 books of the original series.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, ghostwriters were hired to create the Nancy Drew stories under the editorial supervision of Harriet Adams. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Adams began writing the books on her own. She also rewrote the previous novels to eliminate some racist sentiments and to streamline the series. From the 1970s until his last title in 2003, Ghostwriters were once again welcomed on board.
Currently, Nancy Drew is only in print via a new graphic novel series published by Papercutz. Video games, movies, and TV shows based on the books have been released, with limited success.
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