The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys [Paperback]

Carole Kismaric (Author), Marvin Heiferman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1998

This investigation takes an affectionate look at the cultural role of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to uncover the huge and enduring popularity of the young crime fighters. It traces the rise of the youth culture and the way the plots have changed.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The authors of Growing Up with Dick and Jane do themselves one better in this beautifully packaged and exhaustively researched volume. While Dick and Jane is loads of fun, it is a bit light on text; this book tells you everything you wanted to know about your favorite white-bread detectives. The story of their creation in the mind of Edward Stratemeyer, the way they were fleshed out by his stable of writers, and their transformation in the light of a changing America are all told, with tons of asides on their influences, effects, and environment. Kismaric and Heiferman use the teen detectives as a lens through which to view the invention of adolescence in the 20th century, but they never become dry or pedantic. The lushly illustrated, large-format book is as beautiful to hold and look at as it is engaging to read. --James DiGiovanna

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Fireside; 1st ptg edition (October 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684846896
• ISBN-13: 978-0684846897
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,512,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the evolution of two popular children's series, July 14, 2004

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (Paperback)

"The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys" takes the reader back to the origin of the Hardy Boys Mystery Series and the Nancy Drew books. While the two series have Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene listed as the authors, neither author actually exists are a person. They are both creations of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The Stratemeyer Syndicate was the "writing factory" started by Edward Stratemeyer as a means to churn out book after book in a series that he conceived of. He would contract an author to write a book with the requirement the author sign away all rights to the book and to remain anonymous. This led to the birth of Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene (as well as the Tom Swift series, among others).

This book is the history and evolution of these two iconic series for children. The reader is shown how society has influenced the content of the novels, both in the language used as well as the plots. When the Hardy Boys first began in the late 1920's and into the 30's, there early volumes contained numerous racial stereotypes, both among the bad guys as well as the Hardys' friends. Later editions would edit these stereotypes out. This book follows the series through their various authors as well as the change in the focus of the Syndicate after the death of Edward Stratemeyer.

One thing that the authors of this book try to do is tie both series into the society of the time (whether it is the 1930's of the early series, the 1950's or the 1980's). This attempt is what I found less successful or interesting about the book. There are numerous sidebars and pictures and captions about the America's youth during each era and how the books impacted the youth and I felt that this information was extraneous and unnecessary.

What is most interesting about this book is the evolution of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. The characters changed over the 75 years and the books continue to sell. This coverage was the best part of the book and is what I would recommend for the reader. Nothing would be lost by just skipping the sidebars. I do feel that the authors have overstated the influence of these characters, but I cannot question the popularity of the Hardys or Nancy Drew.(...)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great photos, text could be better, November 26, 2001

By 

Andrea Egger, author of Grave Accusations (Gallup, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (Paperback)

GREAT info for the Nancy Drew lover. This would get 5 stars for the inclusion of photos from the books alone. The writing could have been more detailed and written a bit better. I DID like that the authors included information from the period during which the NDs were written -- the '30s through today -- and how teens were changing over the years. Nancy Drew changed and grew along with today's teens, although die-hard fans wish the syndicate hadn't changed a WORD.

I was a little disappointed with the reading of the book, but had just finished "The Nancy Drew Scrapbook" which is AWESOME, so that might be why I was expecting more from this book. I LOVED all the photos, tho, lots of nostalgia!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Stratemeyer Syndicate sleuths get their day., April 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (Paperback)

This book is fun to look at. Dozens of photos, large and small, pay tribute to the most popular series characters in English-language fiction. As a child I used to stand in front of rows of these books in bookstores, poring over the covers, for hours at a time. The covers have a talismanic quality this book neatly captures. Interior line drawings (including the "frontispiece" illustrations in each book) also appear throughout this large-format book. Unfortunately none of the Drew/Hardy pictures are labelled, so unless you know the originals you can't pair them to the book. The potted history of the Stratemeyer syndicate is clearly if breezily presented, with excerpts from letters indicating the tensions behind the scenes between publishers and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who assumed control of the empire after her father died in 1930, just as the Drew series was about to start (three years after the Hardy series had taken off). The authors document almost nothing, though, so you can't easily use the book for research purposes. Still, these authors condescend to the series characters far less than most academic writers have -- it's nice to read complimentary things about the power of the books on kids who have literally read them to pieces over the decades. The main problem with this book is that it goes far afield to encompass a general social history of the last century. We get inset mini-essays on adolescence, "model dads" (from FDR to MLK), juvenile delinquents, "Seventeen" magazine, the influence of TV, etc. The inset coverage is superficial, reading like canned newsmagazine features. Anyone who picks up the book to read about Drew/Hardy is unlikely to care about this material. Fortunately, there is still plenty about Drew/Hardy, with generous quotes from both the original books and updated rewrites of the Grosset and Dunlap series. The authors treat each series as one long book, looking for trends in plots and characterizations -- Nancy is "locked in closets, attics, gymnasiums, cisterns, caves, and submarines," they note. They're also good on the media and pop culture variations of the characters, from Disney TV adaptations to board games. The paperback watering-down of the characters in the 1980s gets softer treatment than it deserves, since this book's publisher (Simon and Schuster) owns the Stratemeyer Syndicate now and published them. The book is worth seeing, as long as readers knowit lacks full focus on Drew/Hardy, and often doesn't reveal its sources.