Customer Reviews

The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk (Nancy Drew, Book 17)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I want to comment on the extra special Applewood Books edition of this book, they sold new in 2001 for $15, and were gone in a flash.
As I sought to reread the old Nancy Drew books from 1940, I found that the stories in most copies I found from other publishers have been edited and changed substantially over the years from the original books. They changed words that may have seemed dated to the editors such as "chums", but to me were a part of the character of the books. They have even changed her hair color in later editions (post 1959) from the original books. If you want to read the original Nancy Drew the way it was written, you either have to locate the original editions, or the wonderful fascimile editions released in 2001 by Applewood Books. These were an exact replica of the original books in art, dustjacket, font, binding and size. A flashlight is now back to being called an "electric torch", a car is a "roadster", Nancy's hair is back to its original golden bob. Thank you Applewood for bringing us "new" originals, and doing the same for the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and Judy Bolton books!

Nancy Drew is a detective who is going on a cruise,Nancy and her friends Bess and George think that they are the only ones sharing there cabin but it turns out that they also have to share a room with an African girl named Helen. Helen says that she was acused of being a jewel theif and asks if Nancy and her friends Bess and George can help her solve the mystery.Can Nancy solve the mystery or is the Helen leading Nancy into a trap? To find out read Nancy Drew and the mystery of the brass bound trunk!

I have read many of Nancy Drew books and like this book. Although this is not in my top list but it still good. This book is worth to read.

Don't get me wrong I am a HUGE Nancy Drew book fan. I have read most of the books in the series and only disliked few. This one was OKAY, it is probably 2 or 3 stars. I found it too easy to figure out in some parts I would think "I can't believe Nancy Drew fell for that" or something like that. I wouldn't want to read it if I were you.

I read a a fair number of Hardy Boys novels growing up, but I only recall reading one Nancy Drew mystery. There was a fairly well-defined gender line back in those days, although I eventually read and really enjoyed quite a number of "girl" books in other genres.

So recently, while researching for a character in the series of detective stories that I write, I decided that the character had been a Nancy Drew fan as a girl. I wanted to get a better sense of the books, so I headed down to the lower school library at the school where I work and borrowed The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk.

Nancy Drew is credited to Carolyn Keene, a pseudonym for a whole succession of ghostwriters. According to a very comprehesive Wikipedia entry, this particular mystery was plotted and edited by Harriet S. Adams, the daughter of the original creator, Edward Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer plotted the first four books, but died before they were published. The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk was written by Mildred A. Wirt from Ms. Adams' outline.

The Nancy Drew mysteries have been revised and updated starting in the late 1950's, but I was very pleased to find that the edition in my school library was the original 1940 printing. This earlier printing has 25 chapters, as compared with the standard 20 in current editions of Nancy Drew.

The story has Nancy and loyal "chums" (is it just me, or are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books the only places where this word means something other than shark bait?), Bess Marvin and George Fayne, preparing for a steamship cruise to South America. Awkward, tomboyish George and girly panicky Bess are Nancy's loyal friends and sleuthing-partners throughout the series.

Long before their ship sets sail, the girls find themselves caught up in a series of intriques involving several passengers booked on the ship. There are also recurring problems involving the new brass-hinged steamer trunk that Nancy's father has bought for her. In fact, as it turns out there are two identical trunks, and that is just the beginning of the mistaken identities in this story.

To my surprise and amusement, I discovered that this book is not so much as mystery as a Shakespearean comedy, complete with the requisite matchmaking and even a young woman disguised in male garb. Plot-wise there is plenty of complexity here, both in terms of the mystery elements and the romantic subplots. Several of the secondary characters are fairly interesting.

Nancy herself, of course, comes off as nearly infallible. Any doubts that she has about her own capablities are fleeting, and she takes every setback in stride. Her companions don't show much depth of character, existing mostly by virtue of their contrast with each other.

That being said, I enjoyed the friendship, loyalty, and courage displayed by the main characters.

Readers might find these books sexist when compared to more recent works featuring female characters, and there are certainly some chauvanistic elements (the characters obsess over clothes to the point where the loss of a steamer trunk leaving that character with "Nothing to wear!" is treated as pretty serious peril), but didn't find it to be excessive. When it comes down to it here, these young ladies are portrayed as being competent, independent, and intelligent.

The girls even get a fight scene, one that they initiate! Okay, it's so brief as to barely count (and our heroines get trounced), but it was more than I was expecting. Most of the action, of course, is on the social front, and some of Nancy's most revealing moments come with the social dilemnas she faces.

More disturbing was the emphasis on wealth that permeates the book. Nancy and her friend are rich, and this is presented as the norm. Their world seems to have almost no place for the poor or even the middle class (there is a very brief encounter with some stereotypical street urchins on the streets of Buenos Aires, but it is almost completely glossed over).

The story concludes in a bit of an anticlimactic fashion, as there is no final direct confrontation between Nancy and the villains, and proceeds to the Shakespearian wrapping up of the various identy mix-ups and romantic entanglements.

In general, I found the plot to be stronger than the writing, which is stilted in clumsy on a sentence-to-sentence basis. Considering the wealth of setting and characters presented in the scenario, the descriptions are bland, and the prose overly simple. The writing here is just not all that good.

Still, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. Definitely worth the read for a quick dose of nostalgic fun.

Her book was excellent as well as the rest of the series. in the beginning nancy drew recieved a false trunk but looked the same as her own. she finally deciphered that this trunk had gold and silver in it that was stolen from a shop. once again nancy drew figured out another diffucult mystery

Of course, every detective needs a day off of sluething! So naturally, Nancy decides to go on a cruise with her fellow detectives, Goerge Fayne and Bess Marvin. While boarding the ship, Nancy notices a man on the pier spell out her name saying 'Beware of Nancy Drew and Ne' but did not see the rest. As she goes to her cabin, she finds Nelda Detwieler in the cabin too. At first, Nancy distrusts the native girl. Then Nelda tells Nancy of what happened to her, and mysterious things happen when a mysterious trunk is delivered to their cabin that is identicle to Nancy's but is not hers.
I think this book is very good and I highly recomend it so that if you go on a cruise and your trunk is not delivered but someone elses and a desparete girl with an amazing story is set in your cabin, you now what to do!

i have read 22 other nancy drew books but have never read one better than this. this book is full of suspisions andalways keeps your eyes glued to the book. i finished this book in 2 day. if you are a nancy drew fan... i suggest you read this book.

Nancy is heading off on a trip to Buenos Aries, but it quickly appears that someone is after her trunk, for criminal purposes. The trip will gain Nancy a new friend, but will also plunge her into the midst of an international crime ring. So, there are clearly some elements of a good mystery. There's also plenty of elements to remind the reader that this is a rather old book- instead of flying with luggage, Nancy and her friends are taking a steamship, and bringing trunks. But really, those elements are part of the charm. What I found far fetched were things that seemed entirely inconceivable. For example, Nancy gets kicked out of the school group with whom she's to travel because a parent finds her 'unseemly.' Those issues aside, this is a rather good story, though I think some of the newer Nancy Drew books do a better job of creating Nancy's environment. Aside from some Spanish references, one would hardly know that Nancy is in Buenos Aries.

Nancy is preparing for a trip to Buenos Aires with Bess and George whilst her father is away overseas on business, and all three girls are traveling with the girls of Laurel Hall School so that the school mistress might chaperone them. Nancy's looking forward to the trip, especially when she gets two surprise gifts: a brass bound trunk with her initials engraved on the lid, and a white agora cat that's left on her front doorstep. Less pleasant is a car accident with a strange and evasive man who overcompensates her for the damage done to her car, and a visit from a highly strung woman who demands that Nancy give up her trip.

Mrs Joslin's reasons lie with her disapproval of Nancy's reputation as a detective, citing that she's not suitable company for her daughter. So she says, but it's Bess who points out a far more likely reason: that Mrs Joslin is frightened of having a detective aboard ship. After a series of mishaps involving Nancy's distinctive brass-bound trunk, with the setting moving from River Heights to the cruise ship to Buenos Aires, Nancy and her friends try to get to the bottom of why so many people find her trunk so darn interesting.

The unusual thing about this particular mystery is that there isn't much of one; it's a series of seemingly unrelated incidents that range from unusual to suspicious. What remains is for Nancy to simply cope with each new crisis and misunderstanding as it pops up, whether it be her missing passport/luggage, matchmaking of young couples, the demands of irate fellow passengers, and - believe it or not - getting struck by lightening.

Yet oddly, all this works in the book's favour, the plot being complex enough to keep you guessing, and yet not so convoluted that it ceases to make sense. It's more like a "comedy of errors", what with crossing dressing, romantic entanglements, two identical trunks and mistaken identity, rather than an actual mystery with the usual kidnapping, burglary and/or blackmail.

Ned appears rather superfluously, and there are several other needless plotlines, such as the cat abandoned on Nancy's doorstep (which disappears halfway through the story), Nancy nearly getting arrested for shoplifting, and the aforementioned being-struck-by-lightening deal. That one's pretty weird: it has nothing to do with the rest of the story, the whole incident is over with in less than a page, and after it happens, no one ever mentions it again.

The ending is a little anti-climactic, but I found that the flow of the story and the basic sentence structure was much smoother here than in other installments (no doubt due to whatever ghost-writer was responsible for this particular book).

Also, be careful before buying: there are a couple of reviews here that recommend an entirely different Nancy Drew mystery than the one I read. Perhaps there's a difference between American/UK versions? Or perhaps a rewrite/republication of the original story? I'm not entirely sure, all I know is that the story I read had no character called "Nelda Detwiler." Hmm...I guess I have a mystery of my own to investigate...