Girl sleuth
Subtitle: Nancy Drew and the women who created her
By: Melanie Rehak
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Harcourt
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Orlando
Language: eng
Number of pages: 364
ISBN-13: 9780151010417
Subjects: Stratemeyer Syndicate; Young adult fiction; Women and literature; History and criticism; Girls; American Detective and mystery stories; Books and reading; Nancy Drew (Fictitious character); American Young adult fiction; Women authors; Nancy Drew; Characters; American fiction; History; Teenage girls in literature; Publishing
Description: In 1930 a plucky girl detective stepped out of her shiny blue roadster, dressed in a smart tweed suit. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties, and emerged as beloved by girls today as by their grandmothers. Rehak tells the behind-the-scenes history of Nancy and her groundbreaking creators. Both Nancy and her "author," Carolyn Keene, were invented by Edward Stratemeyer, who also created the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys. But Nancy Drew was brought to life by two remarkable women: original author Mildred Wirt Benson, a convention-flouting Midwestern journalist, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a wife and mother who ran her father's company after he died. Together, Benson and Adams created a character that has inspired generations of girls to be as strong-willed and as bold as they were.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [351]-354) and index.
Table of contents: title: The Stratemeyer clan; title: Mildred; title: Alma Mater; title: Hawkeye days; title: Nell Cody, Helen Hale, Diana Dare; title: Nancy Drew Land; title: Syndicate for sale; title: An unfortunate break; or, the Cleveland writer comes into her own; title: Motherhood and Nancy Drew; title: "They are Nancy"; title: The kids are hep; title: Nancy in the age of Aquarius; title: Becoming the girl detective; title: Will the real Carolyn Keene please stand up?