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Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her

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In the 1950s my mother would take me with her while she shopped. Twice a month we would go to the variety store to buy fabric, kitchen supplies and other odd bits and pieces. While she shopped, I would head to a small but exciting corner of the store that housed a tiny bookstore of sorts. Eagerly I would search out the newest arrival of my favorite girl sleuth: Nancy Drew. It was a grand and exhilarating time for a young girl who dreamed of being a strong, smart young girl who solved exciting mysteries.

Nancy Drew is 75 years old and Melanie Rehak has written a comprehensive book on the most successful writing franchise ever. From what began as a kernel of an idea from the prolific Edward Stratemeyer (he also created the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys) we follow the beginnings of Nancy Drew and the creation of the author Carolyn Keene. Rehak takes us on an interesting journey of the two real-life women who authored the books, the cultural changes that required the books content to be edited over the years and other little known but fascinating items about Nancy Drew.

Millions of American girls have grown up on Nancy Drew. This book is the icing on the cake for Drew lovers who want to be in the know ....

Armchair Interviews says: Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her is a fun read that will add pleasure to the fond memories of Nancy Drew you had as a child.

Melanie Rehak has written a very nice dual biography of Mildred Wirt Benson, the original ghostwriter of Nancy Drew, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, the daughter of the creator of the Stratemeyer Syndicate who took over running it after his death and eventually began writing Nancy Drew herself rather than just creating the outlines for the ghostwriter. It is somewhat pointless to discuss who the true Nancy Drew (or more properly, the true Carolyn Keene) because it obviously took a combination of factors to shape the world's most famous and beloved girl sleuth and the author of Girl Sleuth is adept at demonstrating this. The book is, at first, slow and feels puffed out a little in the beginning before the actual creation of Nancy Drew but when the star takes the stage the narrative speeds along through the changing decades. It is not the most excitingly written of books, but the story is a truly a fascinating one, even for more of a self-professed Hardy Boys fan such as myself,but it is clearly and intelligently written.

If you had asked me, when I was twelve years old, who I wanted to be when I grew up, I wouldn't have hesitated an instant.

"I want to be Carolyn Keene!" I would have said. "I want to write Nancy Drew mysteries!"

So you can imagine my surprise and delight when I picked up the phone one day in the mid-1980s and heard the question, like an echo of a nearly-forgotten dream, "Would you like to be Carolyn Keene?"

Would I like to be Carolyn Keene? Would I like to win the lottery, hang the moon, be queen for a day or a lifetime? Or as Nancy would say, "Now, that's the silliest question I've ever heard!" Of course I would love to be Carolyn Keene! I felt as if the universe had suddenly opened up and smiled straight down at me. I was about to join the magical, mystical, mysterious team of writers who created the most famous Girl Detective of all time. I was going to be Carolyn Keene!

As a result of that phone call, I wrote five Nancys and a pair of Hardy Boys, working alone or with my husband, Bill Albert. And as a result of that apprenticeship, I went on to be a writer of many other mysteries, a profession and a vocation that I am still happily pursuing twenty years later.

So it was as Carolyn Keene that I happily opened Melanie Rehak's biography of Nancy, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, and Mildred Wirt Benson--and I wasn't disappointed. Rehak's book begins with the first chapter of Nancy's adventures, with the story of Edward Stratemeyer, boy literary wizard and his remarkable children's book syndicate, which got underway with the Rover Boys (1895), carried on with the Bobbsey Twins (1904), and produced the Hardy Boys (1927) and Nancy Drew (1930). Stratemeyer produced the concept, the plot outline, and the publishing contract (much of his work was published by Grosset & Dunlap), and hired out the writing to nameless authors who did the actual work for a flat rate of around $125, under a series pseudonym: Franklin W. Dixon for the Hardy Boys, Carolyn Keene for the Nancy Drew series.

Stratemeyer died just twelve days after Nancy's launch, and his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, took over the Syndicate. Harriet, who graduated from Wellesley and married a stockbroker, had been raised to enjoy life as a well-to-do socialite. She didn't find it easy to take over Stratemeyer's desk, for (believing that women's place was in the home) her father had kept all of his business dealings separate from the home he made for his now-ailing wife and two daughters. What's more, Harriet had young children at home, and had to juggle her work with her family and social obligations. She had a lot to learn, but learn she did, and under her direction, the Syndicate not only stayed afloat but prospered, even through the dark days of the Depression.

But it wasn't just Harriet that kept the Syndicate from going under; a young writer named Mildred Augustine Wirt (later Benson) played a major role in its survival and success. Mildred was a small-town Iowa girl with one compelling passion: "I . . . wanted to be a writer from the time I could walk. I had no other thought except that I would write." Her motto was "Thou shalt not quit." She didn't, either. Aiming for a career as a writer in a time when the words women, career, and writer were rarely spoken in the same sentence, she graduated from the University of Iowa's School of Journalism at the age of 20, got her master's two years later, and the next year, 1926, landed a job with Stratemeyer's Syndicate.

It is to Mildred Wirt that Nancy owes her original feistiness, pluck, and never-say-die determination, for Mildred wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancys: Books 1-7, 11-25, and 30. She would have written more, but when Harriet reduced the writers' pay to $85 a book, Mildred quit, and Walter Karig filled in the gap. Mildred returned for a second stint, then left for good in 1952. After that, Harriet assumed full responsibility for the series. She rewrote many of the earlier books and herself wrote most of the later ones, making Nancy into a rather different character, more tentative, more polite, a little less sure of herself. Harriet later testified: "I felt that she [Nancy, as Mildred had written her] was too bossy, too positive. . . she spoke to people too sharply" (Girl Sleuth, p. 296).

Mildred Wirt also recognized the conflict: "There was a beginning conflict in what is Nancy . . . Mrs. [Harriet Stratemeyer] Adams was an entirely different person; she was more cultured and she was more refined. I was probably a rough and tumble newspaper person who had to earn a living, and I was out in the world. That was my type of Nancy. Nancy was making her way in life and trying to compete and have fun" (Girl Sleuth, p. 297).

None of this came out until the spring of 1980 (a scant five years before my incarnation as Carolyn Keene), when Harriet Adams tried to accept a lucrative offer from Simon & Schuster to publish all future books in the Stratemeyer list. Grosset & Dunlap sued, and the ensuing trial made clear to the public what the Syndicate had tried for years to conceal: that Harriet Stratemeyer had not written all the Nancys (as she claimed); that Mildred Wirt (who like the rest of the writers in the Stratemeyer stable had signed a pledge not to reveal her authorship) had had the most enduring influence over the shaping of the character; and that if anybody was going to wear the title of the "real" Carolyn Keene, it ought to be Mildred.

Melanie Rehak's book is a fascinating study of the cooperation and conflict between the two women who shaped the most famous Girl Detective in the world--and who, in turn, shaped many of us. Speaking for myself, as a young reader I much preferred Mildred's Nancy to Harriet's, for I was growing up in a rough and tumble world where I (no socialite) knew I would have to make a living and compete: Nancy--self-assertive, self-confident, self-reliant Nancy--showed me how to do that. And speaking for myself as a writer, both as Carolyn Keene and as the author of my own three mystery series, I have to say that it would have been a lot harder to learn what I had to learn about making mysteries if it hadn't been for Nancy the indomitable, for never-say-die Mildred, and for Harriet, who saved the Syndicate and kept it going through the dark times.

Thank you, Nancy, Mildred, and Harriet, for making it all happen. And thank you, Melanie Rehak, for telling us their story.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This was a well-written, fast-paced biography of fictional Nancy Drew and the two women who primarily wrote about her: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson emerges as the more sympathetic, though both women exemplify the confidence and perseverance for which Nancy is famous. I also learned many interesting tidbits about history and feminism.

My only complaint was that the book started slowly, and didn't really address Nancy Drew as a topic until page 92 or so. The chapter on Harriet's college years at Wellesley was particularly excruciating, aside from an entertaining bit where Harriet, in a Nancy-like turn, exhibits bravery under pressure when a fire hits an important building at Wellesley. Other than the slow beginning, however, the book was perfect -- and may even spike Nancy Drew sales.

Melanie Rehak has written a fascinating history of Nancy Drew, the preternaturally competent girl sleuth whose line of wholesome mysteries was one of some two dozen series published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate beginning in the early 20th century. Edward Stratemeyer, a prolific writer of children's literature himself--Rehak reports that he published 42 dime novels between May of 1892 and November of 1893 alone--created the Syndicate in 1905. The idea was that children's books would be written by Stratemeyer in collaboration with a number of ghostwriters and published pseudonymously. Stratemeyer provided detailed outlines and farmed the stories out to his stable of writers, and he edited the incoming manuscripts, sometimes extensively, a process meant to ensure consistency in style and plot from book to book. At the same time, the publication of the books under pseudonyms meant that the continuation of a series would not depend on the performance of any one author. Stratemeyer's creations included a great many familiar names--the Bobbsey Twins, Bomba the Jungle Boy, and of course the Hardy Boys. In 1929 he interested his publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, in a new series of mysteries aimed at girls, and he assigned the first Nancy Drew books to Mildred Augustine Wirt, the first of two strong-willed women who would be inextricably linked with the girl detective. Stratemeyer did not live to see the meteoric success of his creation. He died in 1930, after which the Syndicate was run by his two daughters, Harriet and Edna, but primarily by the former. Harriet would control the Syndicate and its creations up until her death in 1982.

Rehak tells the story of Nancy Drew against a backdrop of 20th century history, describing how Nancy changed with the times--her fashion and lingo receiving occasional updates, for example, and the whole series undergoing an overhaul in the late sixties, in part to purge it of racist language. (The Nancy you grew up with, that is, may not have been the one your mother knew.) Rehak brings the story right up to the present: Simon & Schuster, which purchased the Syndicate after Harriet Stratemeyer's death, recently released a new series of Nancy Drew books in celebration of her 75th birthday. Much of Rehak's book is focused on the sometimes contentious relationship between Harriet Stratemeyer and Mildred Wirt. The Stratemeyer Syndicate was jealous of its properties, and Harriet in particular was a fierce guardian of the secrets behind the books' authorship. She came, in fact, to claim to be Carolyn Keene herself--the pseudonymous author of the Nancy Drew books--giving no credit to Mildred Wirt, who wrote 23 of the first 30 books in the series (as well as many other books for the Syndicate). The uneasy relationship between the two women makes Rehak's book that much more compelling.

Rehak's book is clearly the product of a great deal of research, and it is smoothly written. The story behind Nancy Drew's authorship is a complicated one, made so in part by Harriet Stratemeyer's deliberate obfuscation of the truth over the years, but Rehak has done a good job of unknotting the girl detective's messy history. I enjoyed in particular the details included on the inner workings of the Syndicate and would have liked to know even more about the collaborative process, if possible--an example of the synopses the Syndicate supplied its authors with would have made interesting reading, for example. The book might also have been improved by the inclusion of a complete list of Nancy Drew books, with publication year, author, publishing history, etc. My only complaint about the book is that Rehak sometimes goes into more detail than is necessary about tangential subjects. We learn, for example, not only about Harriet Stratemeyer's preparations for entering Wellesley College--a campus visit in 1910, entrance exams--but also about the founding of the institution by Henry Durant in 1875.

But Girl Sleuth tells a story that should interest anyone who grew up on any of the Stratemeyer staples--Nancy Drew or Frank and Joe Hardy or any of their counterparts. Certainly reading the series' back story made me interested in digging up some Nancy Drews myself.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

Amazingly fun reading. Melanie Rehak is very detailed and did her sleuthing research on Nancy Drew and the women (and men, YES) who created her. This is Rehak's first book -- but she's known in NY circles for her articles and reviews etc....she does a terrific job tracing Nancy Drew's history and role in popular culture from 1930 to today....80 million books later-- she (Nancy Drew) is a cultural phenom that seems to transcend age and the web. Just in time for summer reading -- did you know the new Nancy Drew movie starring Julie Roberts niece just wrapped and will be heading for theatres soon...The info on the STratemeyers including Ed the dime novel genius and his daughters such as Harriett is fascinating. Kudos to Mildred Wirt Benson-- originally from Ohio I believe....who ctually wrote unde rthe pen name of Carolyn Keene....from The Secret of the Old Clock to the latest incarnations such as Papercutz American Anime Nancy Drew Versions ([...]-- and yes I do know the guys there) you'll find a version and tale of Nancy Drew for everyone. Great gift. Don't worry the book looks old but that's the cover design...There's also a discussion guide available at [...] so you're reading club can add this to your collection....great cocktail party chatter or fun shower gift or Bridesmaid token....enjoy.....!!!!!

I loved this book. Not only did it tell the story of my favorite fictional character, Nancy Drew, but it also told the history of Women in America for the last 100 years.

Girl Sleuth is that rarity: a scholarly and informative book that is also delightfully entertaining. While the story of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and her publishing syndicate that produced one of the most beloved characters in American young-adult literature, amateur detective Nancy Drew, has been told before, surely it can never have been recounted in such fascinating detail and in such fluent, readable prose.

Author Rehak begins her book by warning that "this is a mystery story, " and indeed several mysteries are explored and unraveled as the book progresses. The most important of these is: how did a woman in the 1930s manage to become a successful CEO of her own business? As Rehak tells it, it wasn't easy. Harriet Stratemeyer (later Adams) and her sister Edna took over their father Edward Stratemeyer's successful publishing business upon his death in 1930. He had already created several classic children's book series, including the Rover Boys and the Bobbsey Twins, hitting upon the scheme of coming up with plot outlines and editing the books while farming out the actual writing to a team of specially trained ghostwriters. It was this formula that Harriet and Edna were to carry on after his death, but surely they could not have foreseen the breakout success of one of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's characters, red-haired, blue-eyed, roadster-driving Nancy Drew, daughter of a successful District Attorney in River Heights, USA. (Among Rehak's more entertaining tidbits is that Edward Stratemeyer had originally named her Stella Strong.)

The obstacles that Adams faced, not the least of which was juggling the demands of running a business and her own household, would be daunting even today; that she faced and largely overcame them in an era where women were still regarded as usurpers in the work world testifies to an almost unbelievable drive and determination. Rehak acknowledges her exceptional qualities without whitewashing her mistakes and less defensible acts, including her treatment of the one author responsible for more than twenty of the Nancy Drew books, Mildred Wirt Benson, as equally unusual and independent a woman as the Stratemeyer sisters, and a successful journalist and author in her own right. It is perhaps understandable, though not excusable, that in later life Harriet Adams tried to downplay Benson's role in the mega-success of the Drew books, to the extent of denying her authorship and projecting the impression that Adams was their sole author and creator.

Through the three hundred-odd pages of Girl Sleuth Rehak chronicles the ups and downs of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, dovetailing its history neatly with the changing role of women in American society and business, through World War II, the Vietnam era and the Women's Liberation movement. Her narrative indeed has the drive, economy and precision of a good detective story. Girl Sleuth manages to incorporate feminist studies, a business history and a chronicle of American pop culture into one compact, readable volume. Bravo!

As an avid Nancy Drew fan, this book did not disappoint! I had known about the Stratemeyer Syn., Harriet S. Adams, and Mildred Wirt Benson, but to be able to take the journey back into history and see how the Nancy Drew books came to be, as well as many others that the Syn. wrote, was priceless. The incredible amount of time and effort that author Melanie Rehak took to research this book shows and Girl Sleuth a definate MUST for any Nancy Drew fan. I only have one question for the author . .where is Mildren Wirt Benson's only daughter, Peggy Wirt, now?

Author Melanie Rehak does a superb job of weaving together the threads of social history, an enduring character, the women who created the character, the business that sold the character, the woman who ran the business, and the man who started it all. I relished reading all the "inside stories" of how the Nancy Drew and her series came to be. More startling but equally delightful was realizing how thoroughly--and positively--my adult outlook on life was influenced by all those girlhood hours spent in the company of the spunky girl sleuth. Bravo, Melanie Rehak.