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Nancy Drew Fan Club
If you want to join, just post anything on this page and you are joined! We'll talk about Nancy, her books and trivia, do quizzes about her and maybe even roleplay a little! if you love Nancy Drew, join this club!

I am doing a speech on Nancy Drew for an upcoming NCFCA tournament! Here it is: You’ve probably heard of Nancy Drew. Who hasn’t? Nancy is the most famous fictional teen detective of all time. She’s survived over 80 years, and though her clothing, expressions and way of life have changed, she remains witty, intelligent, feminine and a good role model for girls everywhere, despite getting knocked unconscious in almost every book. But few people know her full tale other than what can be read in her books. Today, you have the opportunity to learn all about Nancy Drew. Today, I will share all I know about Nancy’s birth, her authors, and how she’s changed over the years. In the early nineteen hundreds, Edward Stratemeyer started The Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packaging company. The Syndicate was the first company to aim the greater majority of its books at children, rather than adults. Edward Stratemeyer began writing his first series, The Rover Boys in 1899. Later on he started other series, such as The Bobbsey Twins, and Tom Swift. At this point, Stratemeyer was writing all the books himself. However, he soon realized that he could not handle the heavy work load. It was around this time that Stratemeyer began hiring ghostwriters to write the books for him under pseudonyms. Stratemeyer continued to write the plots, but now he had a whole team of other people to do the tedious work for him. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Stratemeyer) The first books in the Nancy Drew series was written this way, with Stratemeyer writing plots, and other people doing the actual writing. Nancy was “born” at the age of 16. Edward Stratemeyer created her in 1929. Three years earlier he had started a series of books called the Hardy Boys. These had been so well received that he decided to begin a similar series for girls. He submitted the idea of this “Mystery Series for Girls” as the “Stella Strong Stories”, but she “might also be called 'Diana Drew', 'Diana Dare', 'Nan Nelson', 'Nan Drew', or 'Helen Hale'.” The publishers chose Nan Drew and lengthened it to Nancy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) Stratemeyer then began writing out plot outlines and gave them to a woman named Mildred Wirt. Mildred was the woman who would take what at that time was only a name and turn that name into a character, so real and so popular, that she would last decades and burn her name into literary history. Wirt not only sculpted Nancy, but also her friends and family. Her widower father, Carson Drew, her motherly housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, Her friend Helen Corning, and later, Bess Marvin and George Fayne were all more or less created by Wirt. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) The first three books were published in April of 1930 at a time when girls were ready for something new. Up till then there had been mystery stories, but never ones with a girl as the main character. It was completely unheard of, and possibly a little scandalous. Nancy was something new. She was so daring, adventurous, and smart, that girls all over loved her! Nancy Drew’s books became a huge success. They gave girls higher ideals, and inspired them to be great and do things, other than just stay at home. If you ask anyone who wrote the Nancy Drew books, they will likely say “Carolyn Keene” Now strange as this may sound this is neither correct nor incorrect. Carolyn Keene was a pseudonym for at least eight different writers who all had a part in writing the famous series. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew)Many people think of Mildred Wirt as the real Carolyn Keene. Mildred Wirt is the person who really breathed life into Nancy and brought out her defined personality and excellent detective skills. Mildred Wirt wrote 23 of the first 30 books in the series. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Benson‎) Although it was Edward Stratemeyer who first thought up the idea of this teenage girl detective, it was really Mildred Wirt who “put the flesh on her bones” so to speak. She made Nancy so believable and made her stories so enchanting, that over 80 million copies have sold and they are still being printed today. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) In my opinion, the original books written by Wirt are superior by far to the ones written by later writers, who diluted Nancy’s character, and significantly lowered the standard of writing. The other two writers who contributed many things, to Nancy’s books are sisters Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier. After their father, Edward Stratemeyer, died, Harriet and Edna took over the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Before Edna and Harriet were in charge, the authors had been paid $125 a book. To save money, they cut the pay nearly in half to $75. Most authors agreed with this price change, but Mildred Wirt decided that the work wasn’t wasn’t worth the price, and quit working for them. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) Harriet also started setting more guidelines and rules for the ghostwriters, making them rewrite entire sections if she didn’t like them. She had a vision for what Nancy should be, and made sure that that idea was fulfilled. After Mildred Wirt quit, Harriet wrote most of the books, as well as went back and revised all the editions written before she was in charge and changed things like “Nancy said,” to “Nancy said sweetly,” and on the whole, made Nancy into an adorable, fuzzy little teddy bear sort of character. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) Harriet’s revisions were only the first of changes that Nancy went through. When she started she was an independent-minded 16 year old sleuth. At that time, the minimum age for graduating from high school was sixteen. Many critics, myself included, like Nancy best in the first 30 volumes, because she is confident, competent, and totally independent, quite unlike the cardboard character that Stratemeyer had outlined. At this point, Nancy was often outspoken and sometimes a little sassy, so much that Stratemeyer told Mildred Wirt that Nancy Drew was “much to flip, and would never be well received.” How wrong he was!(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) Harriet Adams, Stratemeyer’s daughter thought that Nancy should be more “sympathetic, kind-hearted and loveable.” She asked Wirt repeatedly to “make the sleuth less bold,” a request that Wirt ignored every time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) In 1959 the books were revised to make the series more modern. Nancy became 18, as the driving age had gone up, and Nancy’s mother died when Nancy was three, instead of the previous ten years old. The character of Nancy Drew also underwent a dramatic change: the strong-willed teen was having her personality diluted, causing her to lose her characteristic independence. The books were also shortened from 25 chapters to 20, quickening the narrative pace. Basically turning well written dime novels into junky dime novels.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew) In the 1980s, Simon and Schuster bought The Stratemeyer Syndicate and Nancy changed again. She also started being written about in other series, such as: Nancy Drew: Girl Detective, The Nancy Drew Files, River Heights, The Nancy Drew Diaries and others. In 2003, publishers Simon and Schuster decided to end the original Nancy Drew series and feature Nancy's character in a new mystery series, Girl Detective. Nancy has undergone some drastic changes over the years. Not all of the changes were good, but more or less, she is still Nancy Drew, and has influenced many people all around the world. And, overall she has had a good effect on many, and hopefully will on generations to come. You know, if you really think about it, Nancy’s positive influence on people is really amazing considering how often she got clobbered over the head!	Maid Mairain & Dawn Rising
2014-01-17 00:36:57
no one wants to keep it active. How long does it take before you delete it??	Sugar1Loaf2 & Lightning
2014-01-17 00:36:57
Thanks Maid Marain! Hi Sugar1Loaf, I think that there are club members who would like to keep this club active. If you are no longer interested, it is perfectly okay for you to just stop being a member. But if you ever want to come back, I know we would all love to have to "visit". :-) I have not read many Nancy Drew books lately. I believe I got about halfway through the "core" books. Then I began pre-reading so many books for our homeschool that I just haven't had the time for Nancy. :-) But since I never read them when I was a kid, I am really enjoying being able to read them now. We periodically go to the used book store to see if there are any Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books available. Nat2 and I want to eventually collect the entire set. I think it would be fun for us to choose a Nancy Drew book and read it, then come to the list and discuss it. While they are not "great literature", they are lots of fun, and we might enjoy discussing a book among ourselves. Any takers?	EagleGirl & Deerslayer
2014-01-25 22:36:25
Sounds great Eagle! You pick the first book?	Maid Mairain & Dawn Rising
2014-01-27 19:10:15
Oooooh, so many books! If you would like to start with the first book, we can do that. If you don't mind starting in the middle somewhere, I'll go see where I stopped and we can do the next book in line. Let me know if you'd rather do the first book. If not, I'll find out the number of the next book I was set to read. What fun!	EagleGirl & Deerslayer
2014-02-06 18:54:51
you choose :P	Maid Mairain & Dawn Rising
2014-02-15 16:22:11
Okay! How about we go ahead and start with the first book? It's been a while since I read it.	EagleGirl & Deerslayer
2014-02-16 04:34:54
Ok!	Maid Mairain & Dawn Rising
2014-02-25 01:12:36
OK! This is going to be fun!	EagleGirl & Deerslayer
2014-02-27 17:59:56
:)	Maid Mairain & Dawn Rising
2014-03-01 21:00:35