These are the same nostalgia addicts who will buy almost any article of cultural detritus from their childhood, be it baseball cards, comic books, cowboy guns or mystery novels. But as much as I loved my childhood Nancy Drew books, I can't imagine giving them to my own daughter in any context other than a history lesson. Not that companies haven't tried to market old Nancys to new children. Of course, it's absolutely not true. What Nancy Drew mysteries lack in literary merit, they make up for in cultural history.
Modern readers have other ideas.
But she simply does not stand up to this kind of analysis. Nancy was a daddy's girl, free to remain an amateur in the absence of a mother, financial obligations or the larger world of college, marriage and motherhood. Just like Carolyn Keene. A mystery writer with a keen mind. I should have known.