Nancy Drew (long epic post - Pt. 1)

I didn't grow up with Nancy Drew. I had a couple of her books as a kid, but that was it. I was more into the Baby-Sitters Club and American Girls. But I fell down this Nancy Drew rabbit hole some time back pretty much by accident. I was at a thrift store looking for books one day and came across a Nancy Drew mystery from the mid 80s. I bought it, enjoyed it for what it was, and commented to myself how that wasn't that Nancy Drew that I remembered. So I went looking for my childhood copies, and I couldn't find the one I most wanted: #1: The Secret of the Old Clock. So I hopped on eBay and looked for a copy (I ended up buying a double volume of #1 and #2, The Hidden Staircase).

While I was looking for that book, I saw any number of really old and expensive Nancy Drews. I didn't think anything of them at the time though. In the meanwhile, the eBay book came... I read it and loved it more than I remembered. I also reread the other Nancys I had left from childhood. That was the end of Nancy for a while.

Then one day, I was at the antique store (which you will recall I love... and would live there if they'd let me). There was a whole stack of vintage Nancy Drew books for $10 a piece. Now, if you're expecting me to say that I bought them all and went home on detective high, you're going to be disappointed. I didn't buy even one. But I wished I had, because the next time I was there *coughcough* two days later *cough*, there were all gone. So the next time I was online, out of curiosity, I did a little sleuthing of my own and looked into the history of Nancy Drew.

And what I didn't know about her could just about fill the Grand freaking Canyon.

I didn't know that there was no such person as Carolyn Keene. It's a pseudonym. I didn't know that there are over 500 Nancy Drew books in various spin off series and that they're still publishing them today. And most importantly, I didn't know that the original 34 Nancy Drew books were revised started in the late '50s. Apparently this was to remove outdated terms and stereotypes etc, but they also shortened the text and changed any number of things. The spunky 18 year old titian haired Nancy I knew was once a feisty 16 year old blonde.

I did a ton of Nancy Drew research. I found out that the original 34 books that were revised have been re-released in their original formats. It was all exciting. I was armed with information... and do you know what I did with it?

I bought Baby-Sitters Club books.

But Nancy would be coming back. And that story will be continued next time...