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chloemakesbooks's review against another edition
2.0
This book was tedious at times, and a little scattered in its focus, but the subject was interesting and chronicled the lives of two remarkable women for their era. I think the book did a good job of addressing the mystery of Nancy Drew, her novelty and her importance in juvenile fiction- but the book was a struggle to finish because of its repetitive and overly straightforward nature.
llynn66's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed this book about the real life creators of Nancy Drew. However, it was vague on one little detail that became extremely important to me as I read it. I ended up doing a bit of sleuthing, myself, and I am extremely amped by what I discovered.
Before getting into that, I will quickly summarize by saying that this is a book for Nancy Drew fans or, perhaps, for children's librarians or others who might be interested in the history of juvenile publishing. I found the book quite interesting, as I am a former YA librarian and also once was a little girl who read her way through every Nancy Drew book that could be found in the small town libraries that dotten the still rural county where I spent the majority of my childhood. "Nancy" is probably the character that hooked me into a lifetime of mystery reading (and viewing!) She also tapped into my obsession with the past -- especially the parts of the mid-twentieth century that I missed (to wit: the Twenties through the mid-1960s when I was, quite anxiously, I am told...born.)
I fantasized, as many young girls did, about being wealthy...driving something called a 'roadster' (later a convertible) and having parents who let me do anything I wanted. Nancy was never arsed to go to work or to school. She was in that Sweet Spot -- apparently freshly graduated from high school -- with no pressure to move on to either higher education (that was a goal reserved for her long suffering boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, and his preppie chums at Emerson College) -- or to gainful employment. Carson Drew had deep enough pockets to indulge Nancy's yen for a mystery seemingly forever -- or until a suitable marriage might take place.
Nancy, therefore, had endless time to perfect her zillions of talents, to travel to amazing locales, and to solve mysteries without ever getting herself or her friends killed. -- My own daughter is going through a Nancy Drew phase at the moment. We were having some reading time recently and she started to laugh. When I asked her what was funny she replied: "Nancy sure has a lot of hobbies. In the last book she was playing golf. Now she is arranging flowers." -- We talked for awhile about how upper middle class girls of that era spent most of their time learning how to be executive's wives. So pastimes like golf, decorative arts, tennis, and other 'country club' pursuits took the place of college.
Throwback and potential Stepford Wife that she may be, I do love me some Nancy. Thus it was fun for me to learn more about her original creator and the women who ghost wrote her stories under the storied nom de plume, "Carolyn Keene". -- I was aware, though my background in librarianship, that Nancy Drew (and also the Hardy Boys) were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate publishing line for juveniles. Edward Stratemeyer was a prolific producer of series for kids, dating back into the late 1800s with lines that are still known today: Horatio Alger, the Oliver Optic books, the Boxcar Children, the Dana Girls, etc.
Nancy Drew was Edward Stratemyer's last brain child. Shortly after he conceived the series and employed a free lance writer from Cleveland to write the first titles, Stratemyer suddenly dropped dead. His two daughters, Edna and Harriet, were left to pick up the pieces, care for their invalid mother, and figure out what to do with Edward's publishing empire. Stratemeyer had exercised rigid control over his ghost writers and his titles. He had produced the germ for every book written in every series...and supplied his writers with the outline for the story he wanted in each case.
Harriet, his eldest Wellesley educated daughter, was intimidated by the thought of picking up the pieces and keeping the business in operation. However, the blue stocking in her was also thrilled at the opportunity to do something with her education. (Like Nancy, Harriet lived the upper middle class life, up to this point - - jobless, and primarily occupied with the running of her household and seemly ladies-who-lunch style volunteer work.)
Harriet took to the business and became more and more interested in/obsessed with the Nancy Drew line. Her relationship with the ghost writer, Mildred Augustine Wirt, was complex. She seemingly admired Augustine's ability to crank out the titles. However she became more and more invested in the content as time went by and often came to loggerheads with Wirt. Both women had definite ideas about the character and, at times, these visions clashed. Harriet was the proper patrician who was mainly concerned with Nancy's 'character' (proper behavior, nobless oblige, etc) Mildred, a former college athlete and more 'rough and tumble' newspaper person, was more invested in Nancy the athletic and bold adventurer.
I could go into much more detail about the relationship between these two women, the various power struggles over Nancy, and also the frosty relationship between the two Stratemeyer sisters...but that is what the book is for. If you enjoyed Nancy Drew as a kid and want to know all about her, then I encourage you to get the book.
My main coup, upon completion of this book, is the exciting knowledge that Nancy Drew was 'born' in my neighborhood!! Yes, although this book rather vaguely informs us that Mildred Wirt (although originally from Iowa) was living in Cleveland in the early 1930s when she began writing Nancy Drew -- I dug in a bit deeper with some research into 1930 census records and learned that Mildred and her husband were actually living right down the street from me in Lakewood! The apartment where she lived when she wrote the very first installment still stands, as do the two homes where she resided before her husband was transferred to Toledo for work.
If I had known, as a hardcore Nancy fan, when I was my daughters age, that Nancy Drew had Cleveland connections, I would have been very excited. This does not appear to be very common knowledge in my city and I am now getting a bit of a bee in my bonnet about trying to establish an Ohio Historic plaque in the neighborhood to commemorate out connection to one of the most famous children's series ever written.
Thus, as a Lakewoodite and a former Nancy Groupie, I am delighted that I had an opportunity to read this title and jump start a new local history research project.
Before getting into that, I will quickly summarize by saying that this is a book for Nancy Drew fans or, perhaps, for children's librarians or others who might be interested in the history of juvenile publishing. I found the book quite interesting, as I am a former YA librarian and also once was a little girl who read her way through every Nancy Drew book that could be found in the small town libraries that dotten the still rural county where I spent the majority of my childhood. "Nancy" is probably the character that hooked me into a lifetime of mystery reading (and viewing!) She also tapped into my obsession with the past -- especially the parts of the mid-twentieth century that I missed (to wit: the Twenties through the mid-1960s when I was, quite anxiously, I am told...born.)
I fantasized, as many young girls did, about being wealthy...driving something called a 'roadster' (later a convertible) and having parents who let me do anything I wanted. Nancy was never arsed to go to work or to school. She was in that Sweet Spot -- apparently freshly graduated from high school -- with no pressure to move on to either higher education (that was a goal reserved for her long suffering boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, and his preppie chums at Emerson College) -- or to gainful employment. Carson Drew had deep enough pockets to indulge Nancy's yen for a mystery seemingly forever -- or until a suitable marriage might take place.
Nancy, therefore, had endless time to perfect her zillions of talents, to travel to amazing locales, and to solve mysteries without ever getting herself or her friends killed. -- My own daughter is going through a Nancy Drew phase at the moment. We were having some reading time recently and she started to laugh. When I asked her what was funny she replied: "Nancy sure has a lot of hobbies. In the last book she was playing golf. Now she is arranging flowers." -- We talked for awhile about how upper middle class girls of that era spent most of their time learning how to be executive's wives. So pastimes like golf, decorative arts, tennis, and other 'country club' pursuits took the place of college.
Throwback and potential Stepford Wife that she may be, I do love me some Nancy. Thus it was fun for me to learn more about her original creator and the women who ghost wrote her stories under the storied nom de plume, "Carolyn Keene". -- I was aware, though my background in librarianship, that Nancy Drew (and also the Hardy Boys) were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate publishing line for juveniles. Edward Stratemeyer was a prolific producer of series for kids, dating back into the late 1800s with lines that are still known today: Horatio Alger, the Oliver Optic books, the Boxcar Children, the Dana Girls, etc.
Nancy Drew was Edward Stratemyer's last brain child. Shortly after he conceived the series and employed a free lance writer from Cleveland to write the first titles, Stratemyer suddenly dropped dead. His two daughters, Edna and Harriet, were left to pick up the pieces, care for their invalid mother, and figure out what to do with Edward's publishing empire. Stratemeyer had exercised rigid control over his ghost writers and his titles. He had produced the germ for every book written in every series...and supplied his writers with the outline for the story he wanted in each case.
Harriet, his eldest Wellesley educated daughter, was intimidated by the thought of picking up the pieces and keeping the business in operation. However, the blue stocking in her was also thrilled at the opportunity to do something with her education. (Like Nancy, Harriet lived the upper middle class life, up to this point - - jobless, and primarily occupied with the running of her household and seemly ladies-who-lunch style volunteer work.)
Harriet took to the business and became more and more interested in/obsessed with the Nancy Drew line. Her relationship with the ghost writer, Mildred Augustine Wirt, was complex. She seemingly admired Augustine's ability to crank out the titles. However she became more and more invested in the content as time went by and often came to loggerheads with Wirt. Both women had definite ideas about the character and, at times, these visions clashed. Harriet was the proper patrician who was mainly concerned with Nancy's 'character' (proper behavior, nobless oblige, etc) Mildred, a former college athlete and more 'rough and tumble' newspaper person, was more invested in Nancy the athletic and bold adventurer.
I could go into much more detail about the relationship between these two women, the various power struggles over Nancy, and also the frosty relationship between the two Stratemeyer sisters...but that is what the book is for. If you enjoyed Nancy Drew as a kid and want to know all about her, then I encourage you to get the book.
My main coup, upon completion of this book, is the exciting knowledge that Nancy Drew was 'born' in my neighborhood!! Yes, although this book rather vaguely informs us that Mildred Wirt (although originally from Iowa) was living in Cleveland in the early 1930s when she began writing Nancy Drew -- I dug in a bit deeper with some research into 1930 census records and learned that Mildred and her husband were actually living right down the street from me in Lakewood! The apartment where she lived when she wrote the very first installment still stands, as do the two homes where she resided before her husband was transferred to Toledo for work.
If I had known, as a hardcore Nancy fan, when I was my daughters age, that Nancy Drew had Cleveland connections, I would have been very excited. This does not appear to be very common knowledge in my city and I am now getting a bit of a bee in my bonnet about trying to establish an Ohio Historic plaque in the neighborhood to commemorate out connection to one of the most famous children's series ever written.
Thus, as a Lakewoodite and a former Nancy Groupie, I am delighted that I had an opportunity to read this title and jump start a new local history research project.
door's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent history of the Nancy Drew phenomenon as well as en education into the way publication syndicates worked. Not at all dry, reads much like a novel.
theresidentbookworm's review against another edition
5.0
Here's my dirty little secret: I was never into Nancy Drew mysteries. I was ten or eleven by the time I read the first one, and I was already beyond that reading level. I've never been one for mysteries, and after the first four I figured out the formula to the books. Needless to say, I didn't finish the series. Still, when I spotted this at Bargain Books for a ridiculously low price, I had to get it. Regardless of my opinion of her, Nancy Drew is a part of literary history.
I was more enthralled with the history of Nancy Drew than I ever was with her mysteries. Melanie Rehak takes you from the late 1800s when Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Startemeyer Syndicate, was born to 2002 when Mildred Wirt Benson, original ghostwriter of Nancy Drew, dies. This is not just a history of Nancy Drew and the women who created her as the title proclaims. It is a history of the women in America: their struggle to earn the vote, their adventures in the '20s, their emergence in the workforce during World War II, and their renewed interest in women's rights in the 1960s. It is also a history of juvenile fiction publishing, how the market worked, and how the Startmeyer Syndicate operated. I found all of this extremely fascinating. I knew Nancy Drew was written by various authors, but I didn't know much else. Two women are key to Nancy: Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Startemyer Adams. Of the two, I preferred Mildred. She was spunky, hardworking, and unwilling to compromise Nancy's independent spirit. I was interested in hearing about the University of Iowa's journalism bachelor degree and how it got started. As a writer, I felt frustration along with Mildred when she didn't get the credit due to her. I liked Mildred so much I was mad when I read that her second husband died. I thought to myself, "How many times can a kickass woman like that be widowed?" Still, Harriet did play a crucial rule in Nancy Drew's history, and I have to give her props for running a company at a time where it was taboo for a married mother to work. She guarded her father's work and his company fiercely, which is admirable no matter what you think of her management skills.
I enjoyed Girl Sleuth much more than I thought I would. I definitely recommend, and I just might have to go back to the original 1930s Nancy Drews for a reread. Maybe I'll see her differently now.
I was more enthralled with the history of Nancy Drew than I ever was with her mysteries. Melanie Rehak takes you from the late 1800s when Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Startemeyer Syndicate, was born to 2002 when Mildred Wirt Benson, original ghostwriter of Nancy Drew, dies. This is not just a history of Nancy Drew and the women who created her as the title proclaims. It is a history of the women in America: their struggle to earn the vote, their adventures in the '20s, their emergence in the workforce during World War II, and their renewed interest in women's rights in the 1960s. It is also a history of juvenile fiction publishing, how the market worked, and how the Startmeyer Syndicate operated. I found all of this extremely fascinating. I knew Nancy Drew was written by various authors, but I didn't know much else. Two women are key to Nancy: Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Startemyer Adams. Of the two, I preferred Mildred. She was spunky, hardworking, and unwilling to compromise Nancy's independent spirit. I was interested in hearing about the University of Iowa's journalism bachelor degree and how it got started. As a writer, I felt frustration along with Mildred when she didn't get the credit due to her. I liked Mildred so much I was mad when I read that her second husband died. I thought to myself, "How many times can a kickass woman like that be widowed?" Still, Harriet did play a crucial rule in Nancy Drew's history, and I have to give her props for running a company at a time where it was taboo for a married mother to work. She guarded her father's work and his company fiercely, which is admirable no matter what you think of her management skills.
I enjoyed Girl Sleuth much more than I thought I would. I definitely recommend, and I just might have to go back to the original 1930s Nancy Drews for a reread. Maybe I'll see her differently now.
aqtbenz's review against another edition
4.0
Like many readers over the last 90 years, I read my share of Nancy Drew mysteries while growing up, and it was so fascinating to read this and learn about the people (not just women, as the title suggests!) who created her character. The only question it didn’t answer is who is writing her now?!
ladybex's review
4.0
For fans of Nancy Drew, this book has really good insight on the people that helped to create her as well as her rise and continued success.
bzzlarabzz's review against another edition
4.0
This book reads like a novel. The ins and outs and ups and downs of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and Nancy Drew's along with them, provide enough drama to keep you hooked to the bitter end. I was very interested to discover the true identity of Carolyn Keene and learn more about the Syndicate that created her and so many other well-loved characters. A great read for anyone who ever loved Nancy Drew.
fallingstar924's review against another edition
4.0
Really cool - great way to find out what happened in all the years prior to when I began reading Nancy Drew in the 80s! Makes me want to go back and read the older ones again!"..
allisonplus's review against another edition
4.0
When I was younger, my top two career choices were hermit (...) & if that fell through, girl detective. When I found out that there was no Carolyn Keene, I was temporarily heartbroken. Who was the person that created my favorite character? Reading this provided both the biographies for the women involved in the Nancy Drew series as well as the historical backdrop for the reading-in-between-the-lines context. I did want more of a feminist analysis, but as a whole - I was pretty impressed by the research involved.