Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her : Book

Search ISBN:015603056X offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her Reference Book. Classifications : Formats Accessories Alternative Formats Audiobooks Boxed Sets Calendars eDocs Historical Reproductions Large Print Libros en español Sheet Music & Scores Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Authors A . Click the following link to view the cover of Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her.

1) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books. Like many other adults whose life consists of books and then the rest of it, in my early years I read whatever I found, including--for purposes of this review--the Hardy Boys escapades and one or two volumes in the Nancy Drew series. I never asked myself who the ostensible authors, Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene, were. Only when by chance I dated a girl whose mother wrote the Cherry Ames narratives did I realize with full force that these were contract books from the Stratemeyer Institute, a professional book packaging service creating titles designed to appeal to pre-adolescents.

Now in _Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her_ Melanie Rehak gives an accounting of the Stratemeyer story, from the Rover Boys and Bobbsey Twins to Nancy Drew. It is a reasonably good yarn, with three main characters, Edward Stratemeyer (1862-1930), his daughters Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1892-1982), who carried the enterprise into the middle sixty years of the twentieth century, and Edna, plus Mildred Augustine Wirt (1905-2002), who wrote many of the early Drew books from outlines supplied by Harriet and Edna.

It is--to use another American myth--a Horatio Alger story of American publishing. Stratemeyer had devised a successful enterprise when he died at the start of the Depression. His daughter Harriet, a Wellesley graduate, quick on the uptake, sussed out the species of narrative being produced. She employed talents, such as the tireless Mrs. Wirt, her father had discovered and quickly understood his business methods. Nancy Drew (and to a lesser extent other series the Stratemeyer group developed), as Rehak points out, were perfect for their times. Up until 1960 or so, when the ideas of liberation and independence tentatively advanced by Carolyn Keene came on in full fury, the old books were cash cows. Grosset and Dunlap made millions. Mrs. Adams, though not a shrewd bargainer, did well too. By the time she and Mrs. Wirt had died, commercially inspired Nancy Drew was a cultural icon.

Rehak´s book is good on details of the Stratemeyer operation, a little long on the historically and sociologically obvious, and a short on extended analysis. It provides more than needed on the atmosphere and women´s rights in Wellesley, privations in World War II, and, at the end, the greater radicalism of the 1960´s. I might have liked as much data on the finances of the 1940´s and 1950´s as was given for the latter half of the twentieth century. Even more, I craved more about why the public particularly seized on Nancy Drew. What made her as appealing a figure as Sherlock Holmes, Mrs. Marple, or Adam Dalgleish for a certain group of readers?

I have my own theory. These escape figures are necessary for sanity; they represent the possibility that life can be worked out successfully--unlike, say, the detectives of Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald. (None of those writers lived as long or as well as Harriet Stratemeyer and Mildred Wirt.) I do not mean that Melanie Rehak had to come to my conclusion. I do say that the book needs more intellectual oomph. On the other hand, such a sensibility might not have the patience to follow the Stratemeyer saga or the requisite belief in the relevance of Nancy Drew to sustain the writing of _Girl Sleuth,_ which is informative and enjoyable as far as it goes.
¤

2) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books. Good-natured true-mystery history of the men and women responsible for the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series of juvenile fiction.

The "Stratemeyer Syndicate" was a group of ghostwriters who created the kids books based on titles and detailed outlines prepared by Edward Stratemeyer, for anywhere from $85 to $150 per book! This system lasted for over 40 years, until the small-town 19th century economics and the cult of Carolyn Keene meant the ending of the syndicate system. The main role of Carolyn Keene was then taken over by Harriet Adams, Stratemeyer´s daughter, who had taken over the company upon his death, and kept it going and healthy into the 70s.

Poignantly enough, as Adams grew older, and her family aged and some passed away, she took on the persona of Keene and adopted Nancy Drew as her own--even though Mildred Wirt Benson, the ghostwriter responsible for the early classics was still very much alive and very indignant about the slight.

Still, all ends well as Nancy Drew lives on in the 21st century.¤

3) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books. This is a good biography and a nice overview of the publishing world of Nancy Drew and pulpdom at large. Gives great peeks behind the scenes into the creation of this most popular girl sleuth phenomenon. Goes hand in glove with The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

Handles a mountain of information quite well. Does not bog down and is a fun read.

Melanie Rehak did a fantastic job. My mother would have loved this book as she was a lifelong Drew (and Bobbsey Twins, etc.) fan and introduced Nancy and the Harby Boys to me as a child. Glad to see more studies like this appearing.¤

4) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books. For the feminist historian looking for a book length essay on Nancy Drew´s influence on Betty Friedan, this book is a must read. For the casual fan of the world´s greatest girl detective and anyone interested in the prolific Stratemeyer Syndicate roughly half of this book will be interesting. Unfortunately the history of Miss Drew and the heavy handed feminist rhetoric are intertwined in alternate pages and sometimes alternate sentences. Fans of Nancy rather than Betty will probably find themselves scanning through pages of social commentary looking for the next mention of their heroine.
Those who preserve will be rewarded with the story of Nancy´s two literary mothers and an inside look at the declining years of the greatest children´s book mill ever created. Unfortunately, the story of Edward Stratemeyer and his struggles to become the king of the juvenile serial are glossed over in the rush to get to his invention of Nancy Drew which came very late in his life.
In the final analysis, this book is a worthwhile read however those peering over the fence from outside the author´s world view will find the reading dry and often tangential.¤

5) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books. This is a well-researched account of the Nancy Drew book series. The writing style is dry along the order of a graduate thesis. The larger print of the book makes for slower reading since it´s hard to breeze along. It is not until after the first hundred pages that the author gets to the story of Nancy Drew. Along the way, there are long side trips depicting the woman´s movement. In fact for a while I thought I was reading the history of the women´s movement in the USA instead of the account of the Nancy Drew books. However, the reader does finally learn how the books came to be written and how the series was continued. After a slow beginning, I did enjoy reading this account.¤

6) Paperback Book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Harvest Books.

A plucky “titian-haired” sleuth solved her first mystery in 1930. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women’s libbers) to enter the pantheon of American girlhood. As beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers, Nancy Drew has both inspired and reflected the changes in her readers’ lives. Here, in a narrative with all the vivid energy and page-turning pace of Nancy’s adventures, Melanie Rehak solves an enduring literary mystery: Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to icon?

The brainchild of children’s book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy was brought to life by two women: Mildred Wirt Benson, a pioneering journalist from Iowa, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a well-bred wife and mother who took over as CEO after her father died. In this century-spanning story, Rehak traces their roles—and Nancy’s—in forging the modern American woman.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, 015603056X9780156030564, 6X0-400-5X0-950-121-NEB-8

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her

Author - Melanie Rehak ... [Goo?] [Posters]

Search: Harvest Books, Book Posters, Book Art