Nancy Drew, Girl Detective
Salon has an excellent interview with Melanie Rehak, who has a new book out focusing on the history of Nancy, and the two women writers (neither of whom was Carolyn Keene; as a reader of this blog you would know that, right?) who largely authored the original books. Thanks to my husband G. Grod for sending me the link.
The character of Nancy annoys some feminists with her rich dad, fashionable clothes, and sporty roadster. I found these things distracting because they made it harder to relate to her, but they didn’t bother me. I liked the books a lot, read all the yellow hardcovers, as well as some of the older versions of the story from the library. I never liked her quite as well as I did Trixie Belden, but she is the original titian-haired sleuth, and she did have an important place on my bookshelf as a child.
Weird point of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy trivia: if you’re in a used book store and there are multiple copies of the same book, take a look at the page count. At some point, the publisher put out shorter versions of the same books, both to save on paper and because they were for kids who didn’t need the finesse of all those extra words anyway (ha!). So if you’re buying old copies for yourself or your kids, be aware that there is more than one version of any story. Yes, there are the original, 1930’s era Nancy stories, in which she is sixteen and blond, and has a black housekeeper. These books are tough to read because of the racial stereotypes, but interesting as context for the series. But don’t assume that there’s just one version of the later Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys hardcovers–look for the longer, older ones.