April 27th, 2006
Nancy Drew and ghostwriters
As a kid, I was a big fan of the Nancy Drew books (before I moved on to the hard stuff - Agatha Christie) so I’m mildly curious about the fact that filming has started in Los Angeles on a new film starring the teen sleuth. Set in, according the press release, “the fast-living, self-indulgent world of Hollywood”, the plot revolves around a “long-unsolved crime involving the mysterious death of a beautiful movie star.” Indeed.
Now doubt it won’t be as camp as the 1970s TV show with the Hardy Boys or if it’ll even be worth seeing, but it won’t be as interesting as the real story behind the books. Many of the titles carry the author name Carolyn Keene, but no such person exists. The real creator, was a man called Edward Stratemeyer, who in 1915 set up the Stratemeyer Writing Syndicate to mass produce novels for the reading public. By 1930, the company were producing 150 book series - including The Hardy Boys and The Bobbsey Twins - under 100 pennames.
Stratemeyer’s daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams took over after his death and ran the publishing empire for 40 years. At various times, up to 50 ghost writers were employed by the company and each was required to sign a contract waving any rights to their stories after completion of their work, as well as an agreeing to total anonymity. One writer Mildred Wirt Benson, later appeared in court for the Syndicate publishers Grosset & Dunlap in a 1980 case against new publishers, Simon & Schuster over publishing rights. An article by Harriet’s daughter Cynthia Adams Lum claims that Wirt Benson only did so out of “her desire for recognition”, but Wirt Benson contributed a chunk to the first 32 books, fleshing out Edward Stratemeyer’s rough story notes. (Salon has a 1999 interview with Wirt Benson, who died in 2002 aged 96). While detailed and one-sided, Adams Lum’s article has a lot interesting background on the company, as does the Wikipedia page.
Some of the old covers (1930-61) are also well worth a look.
April 27th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
There was a wonderful article in the Atlantic Monthly a few months ago about Nancy Drew; see http://www.powells.com/review/2005_09_27.html
April 27th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I knew that the both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew pretty much came from that background. I didn’t realise that the Bobbsey Twins did as well.
April 27th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Cheers for that Nicole, look forward to reading that.
Winds - sorry to burst the bubble but they all came from the one big publishing mill that churned them out.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
It must be 20 year since I last read any of them…
I don’t know. I liked them. They kept me amused for many a long hour when I was a child. *nostalgia*.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Me too, I loved them. They were no Ellery Queen or Christie, but there was a charm to them. I remember reading some of the later ones where I vaguely remember her getting all sassy and having a boyfriend - or am I confusing this skewed memory with Judy Blume books?
April 27th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Well, she had a boyfriend. A football player called Ned. Didn’t he go to university? What I disliked about the later ones is that they felt as though they were written by someone else, whereas the earlier ones kind of hung together. And I loathed the ones where she hooked up with the Hardy Boys.
However, it is to the Hardy Boys that I owe my earliest memories of Parker Stevenson before his Baywatch gig.
April 28th, 2006 at 9:12 am
To my young mind Ned Nickerson and the blond Hardy Boy were the 2 most desirable boyfriends in the world.
I never read the ones where Nancy sold out to the Hardy Boys - I’m gald I missed that travesty.
Is that the standard progression - Nancy Drew to Hardy Boys to Agatha Christie? I did exactly that myself too - with a stop off for HItchcock’s 3 investigators.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:11 am
I like the old fashioned artwork on the book covers you reproduce here.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Ah yes, Parker ‘dreamboat’ Stevenson. Wasn’t he in North and South as well?
Auds, I think that was the progression, I read the Hitchcock stuff too (Bar the Doors, Ghostly Gallery). Did you also read all those Irish/Scottish/British Tales of Terror books?
Garreth - they don’t make book covers like they used to…
April 28th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Hi Sinead, another thing that also be mildly interesting with regard to the film version, I believe it’ll be Julia Roberts’ niece that will play Nancy…
April 28th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Claire, I didn’t realise Emma Roberts was a relative of Julia - hopefully the critics are nicer to her than they were about her aunt’s stage debut last week.
May 2nd, 2006 at 5:28 pm
I wrote about the same thing the other day–though I didn’t know there was movie coming out. The sources I’ve read obviously credit Benson a lot more than yours do. I’ll have to read the articles in your link.
May 2nd, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Patry that article (as I’ve mentioned) is very one-sided, naturally because it’s written by one of the Strathmeyer clan. It’s actually quite funny how they tried to diminish Benson’s substantial contribution to the Nancy Drew stories.
May 8th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Season 1 of The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries since last year. Seven episodes each from 1977. No crossover episodes yet (they came subsequently).
Still holds up.
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