The Nancy Drew series by Edward Stratemeyer

First published: 1930-1979 (56 volumes; Stratemeyer Syndicate series)

Type of work: Mystery/thriller

Themes: Crime, family, and friendship

Time of work: Original series, 1930’s-1940’s; updated, digest series and Nancy Drew Files series, 1980’s

Recommended Ages: 10-15

Locale: River Heights, with frequent trips to other locations

Principal Characters:

• Nancy Drew, a motherless young woman in her late teens, known for both her cleverness and her modesty
• Carson Drew, her father, a wealthy attorney
• Hannah Gruen, the Drews’ housekeeper and a confidante to Nancy
• George Fayne, an athletic, close friend of Nancy
• Bess Marvin, George’s cousin, who is pretty and romantic
• Ned Nickerson, Nancy’s all-American boyfriend

The Story

Nancy Drew books are highly formulaic, following a strict pattern: Nancy, her father, and friends are introduced in the first chapter and placed in a setting and situation, usually involving a journey away from their hometown of River Heights. The first chapter closes with a surprising or frightening incident, which leads Nancy into the midst of a mystery. Nancy spends the middle portion of the story gathering information, which comes to her through a combination of hard work and incredibly happy coincidences. She puts the clues together and closes in on the villains. Her father, Bess, George, and Ned occasionally provide help, but theirs is very much a supporting role, since Nancy is both competent and extremely independent. In the final confrontation, Nancy faces great danger, often placing her life at risk, but she survives in triumph: The villains are led away to justice, their victims receive proper remedy, and other mysterious circumstances are cleared up. Throughout the ordeal, the resourceful Nancy maintains her composure, and she is modest and self-effacing in the face of the inevitable praise which greets her accomplishments.

The Whispering Statue (1937) is a representative example from the original series. Nancy, Bess, and George attend a local park dedication in River Heights, and there they meet an attractive, older matron, Alice Owen. The girls help her to recover missing notes for a speech, and two provocative things happen: The girls inadvertently see a yellowed, personal advertisement clipping in the matron’s possession, and Alice Owen points out Nancy’s striking resemblance to a statue located in Sea Cliff, an Atlantic Ocean resort to which the girls, by coincidence, are headed for a vacation the following day.

Nancy and her friends travel to Sea Cliff on the train, where they witness a villain named Joe Mitza eyeing the inadequately hidden cash of an older woman, Miss Fanny Morse. After an attempt to warn Morse is rebuffed, the girls arrive at the seaside resort for a planned rendezvous with Carson Drew. The attorney explains that he is working on the case of a client, Charles Owen, who has been fleeced by a former partner, Frank Wormrath. An attempt to steal Mr. Drew’s briefcase convinces him that his client’s life is in danger, and he sends for Owen, whose arrival in a seaplane is marred by a near-accident in the waters off Sea Cliff.

In the meantime, the girls visit the Whispering Girl, the statue which resembles Nancy, and learn the history of the once grand but now decayed estate on which it is located: The owner lost his health and his fortune as a result of the escapades of his wayward daughter, Bernice Conger. A subplot introduces an unscrupulous contractor, who attempts to steal the sculpture group of which the Whispering Girl is a part. As Owen recovers at Sea Cliff from his seaplane mishap, Nancy learns that he once was happily married, but a journey separated the man and his wife, whom he has long presumed to be dead. Nancy’s recollection of Alice Owen of River Heights and the mysterious clipping from her purse lead her to conclude that the matron is none other than Owen’s lost wife: Alice Owen is summoned to Sea Cliff, where husband and wife enjoy a happy reunion.

Eavesdropping on a meeting at the old estate house between Mitza and his intended victim, Morse, Nancy is caught, bound, and locked in a closet. From this vantage point, she witnesses Morse’s startling revelation that she is the now-aged wayward daughter of the estate, Bernice Conger, and Mitza is her long-lost son. Mitza leaves the confrontation in a state of shock, vowing to reform his life and forsake the path of crime which has destroyed his mother. A storm suddenly smashes into the house and sends it slipping into the sea, with Nancy and Conger trapped inside. They are rescued (Nancy allows the villainess to be saved first), and it is subsequently revealed that Conger was married to Wormrath and helped to separate the hapless Owens. Conger slips into a coma and dies, and it is announced that Wormrath will settle his legal problems with Owen, on Owen’s terms. The story closes with a ceremony to unveil the Whispering Statue group in its new location, at Sea Cliff.

Two Points to Murder (1987) is Case $NT8 in the Nancy Drew Files series, begun in 1986. Nancy, Bess, and George arrive at Emerson College to visit Ned Nickerson and to investigate a series of acts of mayhem aimed apparently at Ned’s basketball team, which seems to be headed for a championship. Nancy encounters three possible suspects: Ray Ungar, who was cut from the team for bad grades; Tom Stafford, a student council president crusading for a cut in the athletic budget; and Mike O’Shea, Ned’s cocaptain and close friend. Nancy’s suspicion of the latter causes a genuine rift between herself and Ned, culminating in angry words and hurt feelings.

The incidents aimed at frightening the team and its members escalate as the championship game approaches, and Nancy faces great peril, trapped in a breathless sauna and later captured by a villain with a gun. Eventually, the truth comes out: The team physician, Dr. Riggs, has been ringleading a point-shaving scheme and gambling operation. Mike O’Shea, Ned’s friend, was originally involved, but when he expressed a wish to back out, Riggs had him injured. Nancy outwits Dr. Riggs, an attempt to finish off the recovering Mike O’Shea in a hospital “accident” is averted, Riggs is caught, and Ned’s team wins the crucial game. The novel ends, however, with a final disagreement between Ned and Nancy, and Nancy is left in tears.

Context

Nancy Drew is the creation of Edward Stratemeyer, whose Stratemeyer Syndicate handled more than one hundred different series in the first decades of the twentieth century, including the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and Tom Swift. Shortly before his death in 1930, Stratemeyer invented Nancy Drew, his first female detective series character, as a counterpart to the Hardy Boys, and he guided the writing of the first three volumes. Harriet Adams took over when her father died, and became the forming hand behind most of the original series volumes, up until The Flying Saucer Mystery (1980). Adams added the characters of George, Bess, and Ned, and guided the series to its position of preeminence among mystery series for adolescents and teens. In the early 1980’s, Simon and Schuster acquired the series and updated the original books, in a digest format, for younger teens. At the same time, they launched the Nancy Drew Files series, rack-sized books aimed at the older teen reader, starting in 1986. The Nancy Drew Files books feature the same characters but in newly developed situations.

Mystery stories have always enjoyed great success among young readers, and the Nancy Drew series is both cause and result of that success. The excitement of the plots, the interest of the situations, Nancy’s combination of brains and independence, as well as the justice of the final plot resolutions, are very appealing. Nancy Drew has in fact become an institution for generations of young girls.