Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls’ Series

by Sherrie A. Inness (Editor)

This intriguing anthology brings together a broad range of critical essays on girls’ series fiction from established scholars such as Chamberlain, Johnson, and Romalov, along with emerging scholars Katrine Poe, Maureen Reed, and Deborah Siegel. Topics include: Anne of Green Gables, the Isabel Carleton series, early twentieth-century girls’ automobile series, girls’ scouting novels, 1910–1935, Cherry Ames in World War II, Nancy Drew, and Judy Bolton.

Genres: Nonfiction, Research

193 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1997

Reviews

[Gabriele Goldstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came out in 1997 so it's perspective is a tad dated. Nevertheless, as a first book I've read about the phenomena of Nancy Drew, it was insightful. I appreciated learning about series fiction in general and its influence on 20th century readers. I was an avid Nancy Drew fan and remember the stigma of being one. Not surprised to learn that in wasn't until the mid 1970s that the NYC public library would carry the series. Forever young, Nancy Drew was a role model for me and this book confirmed that she was also a role models for millions of other young readers.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hesitate to rate this book because I read some, but not all, of the essays in this book. I have not read some of the book series detailed here so those sections were a little hard for me to connect to. I really enjoyed the Betsy-Tacy essay; that series is not often written about. And the Nancy Drew vs Judy Bolton section made me want to read a couple of Boltons. I devoured Drew books as a girl and have never read a (apparently very different in tone) Judy Bolton book. It was interesting to look at these stories from a different perspective other that the pure enjoyment I had from reading them as a child.

[Mikey · Rating 4 out of 5]

LITERATURE in PUNK ROCK - Books #11-12
BOOKS:
- Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew (Rehak)
- Nancy Drew and Company (Inness)
SONG: Nancy Drew by Sløtface
https://youtu.be/2ZRV3wghZmw

Sløtface is a Norwegian Pop-punk band. The song “Nancy Drew” appears on the first LP: Try Not to Freak Out (2017).

“For this song I wanted to create a kind of super hero savior, so I drew inspiration from Nancy Drew and tried to imagine a bad-ass super hero who crushes the music industries boys club and the patriarchy with one punch,” vocalist Haley Shea tells Consequence of Sound.

Nancy Drew was one of many characters dreamed up by Edward Stratemeyer, American publisher and pioneer of "book-packaging." Stratemeyer's process consisted of writing outlines that were given to freelance ghostwriters (whom fortified all rights, titles, interests) and then published under a pen name (ie Carolyn Keene). He was the creative force behind classics such as The Bobbysey Twins, The Hardy Boys, and The Rover Boys. Edward Stratemeyer, the sole visionary creative-force of Stratemeyer Syndicates, however died in 1930 soon after writing the first three Nancy Drew outlines.

The resultant iconic Nancy Drew arose from three women (Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Edna Stratemeyer, and ghost-writer Mildred Wirt) whom took unprecedented, pioneering inroads in the post-suffragette period of emerging social roles. Nancy Drew likewise emerged in this transitory post-Victorian/pre-modern period of competing codes of feminine conduct. She was the intellectual property of the first-female CEOs in the Publishing Industry, written by the first-female graduate of the University of Iowa's school of Journalism but was also embedded with conservative corporate consciousness. She at-times serves as a protector of orphaned children and helpless or poverty-stricken older adults yet maintains implicit desire to uphold the ideological status quo (when contrasted with her contemporary Judy Bolton). These embedded character contradictions endue Nancy Drew as a transcendental yet ephemeral feminist icon varying liberal to radical across each wave of the last century.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super fascinating.