was in the early stages of the Great Depression. Whoever Carolyn Keene was, I wouldn’t have pictured her as a 24-year-old newlywed, but that’s exactly what Mildred Wirt was when she wrote The Secret of the Old Clock, which introduced Nancy-an edit on Nan, suggested by the publisher-to the world. I wouldn’t have pictured her as a 24-year-old newlywed, but that’s exactly what Mildred Wirt was when she wrote The Secret of the Old Clock.Īs children, we often think of authors as unimaginably older than ourselves. In the years that followed, she wrote several books for the Syndicate, at $125 a manuscript, equal to about two month’s salary for a newspaper reporter at the time. The ad described the work of the Syndicate, including the pseudonyms, and ended with: “We are particularly anxious to get hold of the younger writers, with fresh ideas in the treatment of stories for boys and girls.” When she answered the ad, in 1926, Mildred was 21 years old. Mildred Wirt had answered an ad in Editor magazine while a student at the University of Iowa. Stratemeyer had an author in mind for this new series.
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Grosset & Dunlap bought the idea at once.
#Nancy drew series in order full
An up-to-date American girl at her best, bright, clever, resourceful and full of energy. Then, quite unexpectedly, Stella plunged into some mysteries of her own and found herself wound up in a series of exciting situations. He is a widower and often talks over his affairs with Stella and the girl was present during many interviews her father had with noted detectives and at the solving of many intricate mysteries. I have called this line the “Stella Strong Stories,” but they might also be called “Diana Drew Stories,” “Diana Dare Stories,” “Nan Nelson Stories,” “Nan Drew Stories” or “Helen Hale Stories.” Stella Strong, a girl of sixteen, is the daughter of a District Attorney of many years standing. These suggestions are for a new series for girls verging on novels. In September 1929, this memo arrived at Grosset & Dunlap publishers, the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s longtime partner: Each writer signed a contract that assigned all rights to the Syndicate, and promised secrecy about their involvement with the series, which almost no one honored. He ran a company called The Stratemeyer Syndicate, hiring ghost writers, most of them newspaper reporters, to flesh out ideas he outlined, publishing all of the books under continuous pseudonyms. So who is Edward Stratemeyer? via Flickrīy 1929, Stratemeyer was a successful children’s book mogul.
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At this point, you might be trying to remember the author’s name from your grade-school reading log: Carolyn Keene. It may surprise you to learn that the basic outline of Nancy’s personality was first conceived by Edward Stratemeyer in the 1920s. The adventures of Nancy Drew, perhaps the best-known girl detective in children’s literature, spanned decades, yet Nancy remained about the same age. I had to borrow them from whoever had them.” The Nancys of her era were the highly prized early editions-blue with an orange silhouette of the girl detective. “I didn’t have my own set,” said Marie, who is closer to 90. “In fact, I’m sure that’s where I learned to love mysteries.” “I knew exactly where I was in the series,” she said. She’s one of the ones in her 70s, meaning that she was reading yellow-backed Nancys in the 1960s. “I used to go to the library and check out as many as I could carry,” said Lynne. “Did you grow up reading Nancy Drew?” I asked the three closest to me. We belong to a philanthropic organization dedicated to women’s education. Recently, I sat in the grass at an alfresco lunch with women between the ages of 70 and 90.