- #The case of the disappearing nancy drew video game professional#
- #The case of the disappearing nancy drew video game series#
It was only in the late sixties and early seventies that some of the real identies of such Stratemeyer stars as Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Karen Plunkett-Powell, in her excellent book, The Nancy Drew Scrapbook: 60 Years of America’s Favorite Teenage Sleuth, documents Byzantine plots and conspiracies involving changed copyright records, disappearing Library of Congress files, and nonexistent government employees that the Syndicate utilized toconceal the identity of the true writers of the books for decades. During the worst of the Depression the flat rate was lowered to $100. These pens-for-hire, all using house pseudonyms, were generally paid a flat fee of $125 per book (granted, a big deal in the Depression), but were required to sign away all rights to authorship or future royalties. The books were written under contract, for a flat fee. The Stratemeyer Syndicate books (which included not just the Nancy Drew books, but also those featuring The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, The Bobbsey Twins, The Dana Girls, etc.) were indeed lucrative, although most of the writers never got rich. What is truly unique about the Nancy Drew/Carolyn Keene mystery, however, is the care that was taken to obliterate any and all traces of the “real” authors. Adams did indeed begin writing new volumes and revising old ones, in the 1950’s.
#The case of the disappearing nancy drew video game professional#
Nancy, like Stratemeyer’s other series, was ghosted by a number of anonymous professional writers, most notably Mildred Wirt Benson. When his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, subsequently took over the business, she claimed to be the author of all the Nancy Drews written from 1930 to 1982.
#The case of the disappearing nancy drew video game series#
Like so many well-known juvenile mysteries (see ), the Nancy Drew series was conceived and (in the beginning) outlined by Edward Stratemeyer. It looks like she’ll be with us for a long, long time to come…īut there are at least two questions surrounding NANCY DREW I’d like answered. She’s been featured in films, television and video games and you can buy everything from Nancy Drew socks and sneakers to cookbooks and hairclips.
![the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/d6/50/c7/d650c7206be6446d64c5670593b4119b.jpg)
Besides the 175 books in the original series, there have been countless spin-off series, occasionally featuring her friends The Hardy Boys. At least 80 million copies of the books have been sold worldwide, and the books have been translated into over forty-five languages. The books all appeared under the byline of Carolyn Keene, a Syndicate pseudonym used not just for the Nancy Drew series but also The Dana Girls, and over the years, the character evolved (and were revised) in response to political and cultural changes, with Nancy’s “rough” edges sanded down and her “femininity” pushed up. The original rather spoiled rich girl of 1930 (ain’t white privilege swell?) slowly morphed into an almost-credible young woman who in later books uses computers and cellphones and drives a hybrid electric car, and shows no signs of stopping.
![the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/lwpbs8khhc0h4zsgufny.png)
![the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game the case of the disappearing nancy drew video game](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a0/cf/7b/a0cf7b6f4ee7cb5e4398440ae2dbb29d.jpg)
She made her debut in The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), the first in an apparently endless series of books for young readers cranked out by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female answer to his already successful The Hardy Boys series which had begun only a few years earlier. Not bad for a smart-ass kid from River Heights who grew up without a mother. A feminist icon and an inspiration to women everywhere, including Oprah Winfrey, Sandra Day O’Connor, Sara Paretsky, Sonia Sotomayor, Barbara Walters, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Barbra Streisand, Beverly Sills, Ellen Barkin, Emma Roberts, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush, and served as a clear influence on such later girl sleuths as Veronica Mars. NANCY DREW is arguably the most famous fictional female sleuth of them all, the ultimate girl detective. House pseudonym of the Stratemeyer Syndicate