River Heights. Ned Nickerson. Bess Marvin and George Fayne.
If you recognise those references, congratulations! You’re a die-hard Nancy Drew fan.
I read a lot of books when I was a kid. If I had to choose my favorites, I’d include the “Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” “The Hobbit,” and “Half Magic” by Edward Eager (charmingly illustrated by N.M. Bodecker). And a list of my favorite books wouldn’t be complete without “A Little Princess” or “The Secret Garden.”
But the fictional character I loved the most, whose books I devoured like candy whenever I curled up on the faded yellow armchair in my room, was Nancy Drew.
The series, written by Carolyn Keene, spanned the decades from the 1930s to the 1980s. It was many years before I learned that there was no “Carolyn Keene.” The original books were penned by two women, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson, for Grosset and Dunlap publishers.
Each volume featured Nancy, the intrepid teenage daughter of widowed lawyer Carson Drew, who stumbled into a mystery and solved it by the end of the book. Her long-suffering boyfriend Ned often warned her to be careful, but Nancy never let a little thing like danger – or an over-cautious, blond-haired boyfriend (no matter how good-looking he was!) – get in her way.
I inherited the books when I was ten. Our neighbor’s daughter left for college, and so her unwanted box of Nancy Drew mysteries became mine. Some of the books had dark blue covers, with illustrations from the 1930s and 40s; most were published in the fifties and sixties and had yellow covers.
I was thrilled. I was crazy for mysteries, and couldn’t believe my good fortune in inheriting this treasure trove, this bonanza, this mother lode of all things Nancy.
All of the titles were in that box – among them, “The Secret of the Old Clock,” “The Ghost of Blackwood Hall,” “The Scarlet Slipper Mystery,” and my favorite, “The Clue of the Dancing Puppet.”
(That book scared the bejeebies out of me. It featured a mysterious, life-sized puppet in a ballet costume, dancing at night on the grounds of an old estate. Very creepy stuff for a ten-year-old girl huddled under the covers with a flashlight.)
My favorites were the books published in the 1930s and 40s. Nancy drove a “roadster” and had seamed stockings and a cloche hat. In later books, she drove a convertible (and eventually a Mustang), and had an updated wardrobe.
What was it about Nancy that was so appealing to several generations of girls? Was it her sense of adventure, her eagerness to solve a mystery and help right a wrong? Was it her “titian hair” that I admired, or her handsome college boyfriend, Ned?
Or was it just that damned convertible?
Looking back, I think it was the fact that Nancy, unhampered by something as pedestrian as a mother, was free to jump in her convertible and chase clues all over River Heights with her good friends Bess and George. She used her wits and she wasn’t afraid to confront a villain. (She got conked on the head an awful lot, though.) Nancy solved mysteries, not to bring acclaim to herself, but to help others, and to put the bad guys where they belonged – firmly behind bars.
She was pretty and kind and clever, and while she was fond of Ned, he wasn’t the focus of her life. The fact that most of the books were written in the 1930s and 40s still amazes me. Nancy was no shrinking damsel in distress, no dreamy-eyed girl in search of a husband. She was a smart, attractive gal who liked to solve a mystery and had plenty of (sometimes dangerous) adventures along the way.
So here’s to roadsters, and sleuthing, and a brave, titian-haired girl named Nancy, who provided me not only many hours of fingernail-chewing entertainment, but one heck of a great female role model.
Thanks, Nancy. Oh, and by the way – LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!