Happy Birthday, Nancy Drew!

     Today is the 83rd anniversary of the Nancy Drew series! 83 years ago, there were only three different N.D. books and they were all part of the same series. Since then, Nancy has solved over 600 mysteries in books, on tv shows, in movies, and more! Here is a timeline of the things that have happened through the Nancy Drew years:

• 1862 - Edward Stratemeyer is born.
• 1892 - Harriet Stratemeyer is born.
• 1893 - Russell H. Tandy is born.
• 1895 - Edna Stratemeyer is born.
• 1898 - Walter Karig is born.
• 1905 - Edward Stratemeyer starts the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Mildred Augustine is born.
• 1911 - Bill Gillies is born.
• 1915 - Harriet Stratemeyer marries Russell Vroom Adams.
• 1918 - Mildred Augustine's first short story is published.
• 1918 - Mildred Augustine's first published work, The Courtesy, wins a silver badge.
• 1923 - Rudy Nappi is born. Bonita Granville is born.
• 1925 - Millie begins her career in writing.
• 1926 - Mildred Augustine begins working for the Stratemeyer Syndicate.
• 1928 - Mildred Augustine marries Asa A. Wirt.
• 1929 - Nancy Drew is created and Mildred Wirt is hired to write the books.
• 1930 - The Nancy Drew series debuts. Edward Stratemeyer passes away.
• 1931 - Bess Marvin & George Fayne are introduced.
• 1932 - Nancy meets Ned Nickerson, Walter Karig writes Nancy's Mysterious Letter. (this is the first change in authors for the series).
• 1933 - Macy's sells 6,000 Nancy Drew books during the Christmas season!
• 1934 - Millie continues to write the Nancy Drew books, The Clue of the Broken Locket, is released with its mysterious cover art.
• 1935 - Nancy solves The Message in the Hollow Oak, her first case set outside of the U.S.A.
• 1937 - Togo is introduced, The frontspiece becomes the only glossy internal illustration in the books.
• 1938 - Nancy Drew makes her first movie appearance.
• 1939 - Three more Nancy Drew movies are released. Also, Mildred A. Wirt Benson's busiest year. She wrote 13 books.
• 1940 - Nancy's cat Snowball makes her one and only appearance (#17).
• 1941 - Paper frontspieces are used instead of glossy's.
• 1947 - Mildred A. Wirt's husband, Asa A. Wirt, passes away.
• 1949 - Russell H. Tandy stops illustrating the Nancy Drew books.
• 1950 - Bill Gillies begins illustrating the Nancy Drew books. Mildred A. Wirt marries George A. Benson.
• 1953 - Mildred Benson stops writing the Nancy Drew series, Rudy Nappi begins illustrating the Nancy Drew books. Pamela Sue Martin is born.
• 1956 - Walter Karig passes away.
• 1959 - The revisions for books 1-34 begin, the cameo books begin releasing.
• 1960 - The last six cameo books are published.
• 1961 - Russell H. Tandy passes away. Dust jackets are no longer used..
• 1973 - The Nancy Drew Cookbook is released.
• 1974 - Edna Stratemeyer ?Squier? passes away.
• 1977 - Nancy Drew Makes her first television appearance. The revisions of books 1-34 are complete.
• 1978 - Janet Louise Johnson replaces Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew in The Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Mysteries. Nancy Drew is cut out of The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mysteries TV show, the show is renamed The Hardy Boys Mysteries.
• 1979 - The Classic Nancy Drew series ends, Simon & Schuster begin publishing Nancy Drew books, The Digest Series begins. The Hardy Boys Mysteries TV show ends.
• 1981 - Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys appear in their first book together.
• 1982 - Harriet Stratemeyer Adams passes away.
• 1984 - Simon & Schuster publishers purchases the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Be a Detective series debuts.
• 1985 - The first David Farah's first Farah's Guide book is published, the last of the Be a Detective books are published.
• 1986 - The Nancy Drew Files series launches.
• 1988 - The Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Super Mysteries is published. In the Files series, Nancy gets engaged, but not to Ned! The marriage never takes place. Bonita Granville passes away.
• 1989 - The River Heights series debuts.
• 1990 - March 6, the very first Nancy Drew play!
• 1992 - The River Heights series ends.
• 1993 - The Nancy Drew Conference is held in Iowa.
• 1994 - The Nancy Drew Notebooks series is published.
• 1995 - The second Nancy Drew television series airs and the On Campus series debuts.
• 1997 - The Nancy Drew Files Series ends.
• 1998 - The Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Super Mysteries and the On Campus series ends, HeR Interactive releases their first Nancy Drew computer game.
• 2000 - Bill Gillies Dies.
• 2001 - The first Nancy Drew Convention is held in Toledo, Ohio.
• 2002 - Mildred A. Wirt Benson passes away, A pilot for a new Nancy Drew tv series airs, but is not picked up as a tv series, the first Nancy Drew audio books are released.
• 2003 - The Nancy Drew Digest Paperbacks series ends.
• 2004 - The Nancy Drew Girl Detective Series begins.
• 2005 - The Nancy Drew Graphic novels are released, the Nancy Drew notebooks series ends.
• 2006 - The Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series is published, The Sleuth, a magazine all about Nancy Drew is published for the first time (Sep/Oct).
• 2007 - The fifth Nancy Drew movie is released.
• 2010 - The Nancy Drew Graphic novels end, new case files series begins.
• 2011 - The Nancy Drew Paper Dolls are released, the New Case Files end, HeR Interactive releases their 25th ND computer game, a special edition that was their first game set in River Heights. HeR Interactive also releases a Nancy Drew app into the iTunes store that is based on their game, The Secret of Shadow Ranch.
• 2012 - The Nancy Drew Girl Detective series ends, a second set of Nancy Drew Paper Dolls comes out, this time featuring Nancy, Bess, George, Ned, and even Togo! Clue Crew graphic novels are published for the first time.
• 2013 - The Nancy Drew Diaries series debuts and SiennaRose starts the All About Nancy Drew Blog ;)

Wow, that was really long! Thanks to Jennifer Fisher from nancydrewsleuth.com for her timeline! I checked it often to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything! Thanks for reading! I hope we will get to see a lot more of Nancy in the future!

~Sienna

Random Fact of the Week: The typewriter that Mildred A. Wirt Benson used to write Nancy Drew books is now in the Smithsonian Institute!

The Nancy Drew Classic Series: Originals vs. Revised

     The classic Nancy Drew series was written from 1930 to 1979. Thirty-four of those books were written over a period of twenty-nine years, then in 1959, those books began to be revised and the next twenty-two books started being written in this new format. The books were revised for several reasons. Mainly to update the books and remove all stereotypes. Here is a list of the changes that were made to the revised books. The (o) stands for original and the (r) for revised.

1. (o) Nancy's mother died when Nancy was ten years old.

    (r) Nancy's mother died when Nancy was three years old.

2.  (o) Nancy's hair was blonde.

     (r) Nancy's hair is strawberry blonde.

3. (o) Nancy was sixteen years old.

    (r) Nancy is eighteen years old.

4. (o) The books had 25 chapters.

    (r) The books have 20 chapters.

5. (o) The books were approximately 200 pages long.

    (r) The books are approximately 180 pages long.

6. (o) The books were illustrated mainly by Russell H. Tandy.

    (r) The books are illustrated mainly by Rudy Nappi.

7. (o) Bess and George were sixteen years old.

    (r) Bess and George are eighteen years old.

8. (o) Hannah Gruen was nothing more than a housekeeper.

    (r) Hannah Gruen was Nancy's dear friend and mother figure.

9. (o) Nancy was fearless.

    (r) Nancy was much more careful.

10. (o) Nancy didn't mind breaking the rules a little bit if it meant she would solve the mystery.

      (r) Nancy would never break the rules.

11. (o) Nancy was described as "pretty".

      (r) Nancy was described as "attractive".

12. Books 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 17, and 18 got brand new stories when they were revised.

13. Several titles were slightly altered. (e.g. The Secret at Shadow Ranch became The Secret of Shadow Ranch)

~Sienna

Random Fact of the Week: When Edward Stratemeyer was creating Nancy Drew, some of the names he considered were Diana Drew, Nell Cody, Stella Strong, Nan Nelson, Diana Dare, Helen Hale, and Nan Drew.

The History of Nancy Drew

     Today I thought I would tell a bit about the history of Nancy Drew and how she was created in 1929. For several years, an author named Edward Stratemeyer had been wanting to create a mystery series of books in which a teenage girl was the hero. Back in those days, books like that were not very common. Sure, you could find plenty of mystery books and stories, but the hero in those books almost always turned out to be a boy. Edward Stratemeyer decided to try something new. In 1929, he created a children's series of books for girls (and boys too). It was a mystery series and the heroine was a sixteen year old girl named Nancy. Nancy Drew.

     Once Mr. Stratemeyer had written several plots and gotten permission from his publisher (Grosset & Dunlap) he hired Mildred A. Wirt to write the books. On April 28, 1930 the first three books were published together, as a breeder set. The series was an immediate success. Sadly, Mr. Stratemeyer never knew what a hit the books were. He was very sick and in bed with pneumonia at the time. He passed away just twelve days later, on May 10.

     When Mr. Stratemeyer died, his daughters Harriet and Edna ran his business. Mildred A. Wirt continued writing the books for a long time. The books she wrote were 1-7, 11-25, and 30. The classic series was written by a total of eight different ghost writers under the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene. One of these authors was Mr. Stratemeyer's daughter Harriet. She wrote books 31 and 33-56. She also revised the first 34 books starting in 1959 with the help of six other authors. The classic series ran from 1930 to 1979. There have been a total of twelve Nancy Drew series altogether.


     Everything I post on here is my own writing, but much of the information I found by reading dozens of books and websites dedicated to Nancy Drew. One of the best websites I found so far is nancydrewsleuth.com by Jennifer Fisher. This website is amazing and I recommend that anyone interested in Nancy Drew read it! I hope you enjoyed what I wrote today. Next time I will be talking about the revisions of the classic series and the differences between the original and revised books!

~Sienna

My Nancy Drew Collection

     Hi, everyone! Today I thought I'd show you some pictures of my Nancy Drew collection!

It consists of:

• 258 books
• 14 computer games
• 4 movies
• 3 issues of The Sleuth magazine
• 2 seasons of the tv show from the 70's
• 1 poster
• 1 notebook
• 1 lunchbox (with thermos)
• and a few odds and ends (e.g. a charm bracelet)

     I started reading Nancy Drew books during the summer of 2007 and have been collecting them since late 2008. In the beginning I bought most of my books brand new, but when that got too expensive I started using ebay.com and used book stores. Mckaybooks.com is my favorite place to shop. How many of you collect Nancy Drew books? What are your favorite places to shop? Please comment, I would love to hear what you have to say!

~Sienna

Everything together!!!

The Be A Detectives

Poster, Notebook, Lunchbox & Thermos, and a few odds 'n' ends

The Digest Spinoffs

The Digests

The Clue Crews

The Girl Detectives

The Brand New Diaries!

Twin Thrillers

Some Book Club Edition Classics!

The Files

The Cameos

The Classics

River Heights

The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Super Mysteries

Three issues of The Sleuth

Nancy Drew Computer Games by HeR Interactive
(These games are so amazing! I will be
posting more about them in the near future!)

Tv shows, movies, and books about the movies

Applewood Books

A few originals!

These were my Great Grandmother's books!

Books about Nancy Drew

Welcome!

     Hi everyone! Welcome to the All About Nancy Drew blog! I started this blog because I love Nancy Drew and everything about her. This blog will be a place for people like myself to come and learn more about the Nancy Drew. I am currently working on a book about Nancy and a Daily Calendar with 365 facts about Nancy and the people who created her.

     I am going to try posting as often as possible, probably once or twice a week. I hope you enjoy reading this blog! Please Comment, I would love to hear what you have to say!

     ~Sienna ♥


Random Fact of the Week: Did you know that Nancy Drew was created in 1929 by a man named Edward Stratemeyer? Mr. Stratemeyer also created many other children's series such as The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Ruth Fielding and The Bobbsey Twins!