A Nancy for All Seasons

Tanja Blaschitz A Nancy For All Seasons DIPLOMARBEIT zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Magistra der Philosophie Studium: Lehramt Unterrichtsfach Englisch/ Unterrichtsfach Italienisch Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften Begutachter: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Heinz Tschachler Institut: Anglistik und Amerikanistik April 2010 Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung Ich erkläre ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende wissenschaftliche Arbeit selbststän- dig angefertigt und die mit ihr unmittelbar verbundenen Tätigkeiten selbst erbracht habe. Ich erkläre weiters, dass ich keine anderen als die angegebenen Hilfsmittel be- nutzt habe. Alle aus gedruckten, ungedruckten oder dem Internet im Wortlaut oder im wesentlichen Inhalt übernommenen Formulierungen und Konzepte sind gemäß den Re- geln für wissenschaftliche Arbeiten zitiert und durch Fußnoten bzw. durch andere genaue Quellenangaben gekennzeichnet. Die während des Arbeitsvorganges gewährte Unterstützung einschließlich signifikanter Betreuungshinweise ist vollständig angegeben. Die wissenschaftliche Arbeit ist noch keiner anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt wor- den. Diese Arbeit wurde in gedruckter und elektronischer Form abgegeben. Ich bestätige, dass der Inhalt der digitalen Version vollständig mit dem der gedruckten Ver- sion übereinstimmt. Ich bin mir bewusst, dass eine falsche Erklärung rechtliche Folgen haben wird. Tanja Blaschitz Völkermarkt, 30. April 2010 iii Acknowledgement I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks. by William Shakespeare I would like to use this page to thank the following persons who made the com- pletion of my diploma thesis possible: At the very beginning I would like to thank Professor Heinz Tschachler for his kind support and stimulating advice in the supervision of my diploma thesis. I would also like to thank my dearest friends who have helped me with words and deeds throughout my education. Special thanks go to my long-standing boyfriend Erich who has always listened to my problems and strongly motivated and encouraged me in hard times during my studies. Erich, together we have spent some awesome years of study! Most of all, though, I would like to thank my parents and family for their finan- cial and moral support during the time of my studies and writing of my diploma thesis. Without their help, I would not have had the opportunity to enjoy such a diversified study period. Had I not been able to study in Kansas City, I would have never gotten to know the girl sleuth, Nancy Drew. v Table of Contents Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung ....................................................................................... iii Acknowledgement ...................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... vii List of Images ............................................................................................................. ix Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 The “Production” of the Nancy Drew Books: From the Past to the Present ........ 5 A Discussion of Selected Nancy Drew Novels from 1930 to 2008 ........................ 19 3.1 Nancy Drew throughout the 1930s and 1940s ............................................ 19 3.2 The Girl Sleuth from the late 1950s to the 1980s ....................................... 57 3.3 The Teenage Heroine from the 1980s into the 21st Century ...................... 76 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 89 Works Cited .............................................................................................................. 93 vii List of Images Image 1: Edward Stratemeyer ...................................................................................... 6 Image 2: Mildred Wirt Benson ..................................................................................... 8 Image 3: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, circa 1930 ...................................................... 10 Image 4: Dust jacket of The Secret of the Old Clock by Russell Tandy.................... 20 Image 5: Dust jacket of Nancy‟s Mysterious Letter by Russel Tandy ....................... 24 Image 6: Nancy in her car .......................................................................................... 35 Image 7: A smoking flapper ....................................................................................... 40 Image 8: Worried Nancy ........................................................................................... 43 Image 9: White Supremacy in the US ........................................................................ 55 Image 10: Nancy seeing the moving van ................................................................... 60 Image 11: Nancy‟s hand stuck to the wall.................................................................. 68 Image 13: Cover of Secrets Can Kill .......................................................................... 80 ix Chapter1 Introduction Convinced that the inspiration was a happy one, she set off toward her father‟s office. He was engaged in an important conference when she arrived, and Nan- cy was forced to wait ten minutes before she was admitted to the inner office. “Now what?” her father asked, smiling as she burst upon him. “Is it a new dress you want?” Nancy‟s cheeks were flushed and her eyes danced with excitement. “Don‟t try to tease me,” she protested. “I‟ve stumbled onto something important, and I want information!” “At your service, Nancy,” Mr. Drew said. “But if it‟s about the Crowley case, I‟ve told you everything I know.” (The Secret of the Old Clock 62) Nancy studied herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. The tight jeans looked great on her long, slim legs and the green sweater complemented her strawberry-blond hair. Her eyes flashed with excitement of a new case. She was counting on solving the little mystery fairly easily. In fact, Nancy thought, it would probably be fun! “Right now,” she said to her two friends, “the hardest part of this case is deciding what to wear.” “That outfit, definitely,” Bess said, sighing with envy at Nancy‟s slender figure. “You‟ll make the guys absolutely drool.” (Secrets Can Kill 2-3) These above quoted passages taken from two Nancy Drew novels of the years 1930 and 1986 should indicate what the thesis at hand will address: A discussion of various Nancy Drew stories of different time periods demonstrating how they have changed since their “birth” on April 28, 1930 in the United States with the title The Se- cret of the Old Clock up into the twenty-first century. 1 2 Introduction Nancy Drew stories belong to the genre “series books”, books that “take place in a timeless world where the characters never grow any older or only grow older in the most gradual form” (Inness 2). The plots are rather formulaic, and the reader hardly meets fully developed characters. The Nancy Drew books are mainly aimed at girls and young women, but the texts also have a lot of adult fans. Large numbers of readers have collected their favorite books they read as children and still look back over them as grown-ups, especially because Nancy Drew, the main character of the books, has influ- enced their personalities throughout their lives. From the year 1930 to the year 2003, more than seventy years, Nancy Drew Mystery Stories have been written, and starting in the eighties, certain spin-off series like the Nancy Drew Files (1986-1997) or the Nancy Drew On Campus series (1995- 1998) appeared on the market. When the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories after the release of 175 different novels came to a stop, Simon & Schuster, a famous publishing com- pany, started to bring out the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series in 2004, a series that authors still write on today enchanting the minds of various girls and teenagers all over the world. Some of the Nancy Drew novels have even been translated into foreign lan- guages, for example French and German. Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, stories about Nancy Drew, the famous amateur girl detective who solves numerous cases at the ages of sixteen and eighteen, was written over a seventy-year span and the series continues today based on the original. Thus we come to ask ourselves the following questions: Have the plots of the Nancy Drew novels in terms of content and structure changed through the ages? Has famous Nancy Drew, the protagonist of the Nancy Drew stories, been modified in her eighty years of existence? How have her relationships to other recurrent characters, like her father Car- son Drew, her steady boyfriend Ned Nickerson, or her best friends Bess Marvin and tomboy George Fayne altered? Have social constructions such as class, race, and gender been dealt with differently through the ages or has there been consistency over time? What could be the reasons for possible alterations in the books? And one further inter- esting question: Who is Carolyn Keene, the “author” of the Nancy Drew books, who has written novels over almost eighty years? What author can write novels for eighty years? Introduction 3 I will discuss the last question about the “author” of the Nancy Drew novels in chapter two of the thesis, The “Production” of the Nancy Drew Books: From the Past to the Present. In this chapter, we will find out who actually came up with the bright

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