the problem of Nancy Drew

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the problem of Nancy Drew

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1leahbird
Jul 27, 2011, 5:41 pm

my 14 year-old cousin Annie, who is the other passionate reader in the family, has been reading the Nancy Drew books. she has very few adults in her life that she could possibly talk books with (certainly not her ridiculous parents) so i try to keep up with what she is interested in.

she's reading our grandmother's set of originals but there are some holes in it. i'd like to purchase the series as i go and also get her the ones she's missing, but i'm running into the problem of original vs. revised. the question is, which of the myriad of publisher's editions contains the original stories? if i'm buying them, i'd like to have just one publisher's series.

i like the look of the "Flashlight" editions put out by Grosset & Dunlap, but can't seem to find any information on whether these are revised or not. i like that they don't have dust jacket but rather have the cover art printed onto the boards (great for future children). on the other hand, it looks like the Applewood editions are definitely original but i think they have dust jackets.

does anyone have either of these or know for sure?

2aluvalibri
Jul 27, 2011, 6:24 pm

I have four of them in the Applewood Books edition, which is a facsimile edition of the original. The blurb on the inside of the dust jacket says: "This is a reproduction of the first edition of The Hidden Staircase as it was originally published in 1930".
I also have The Sign of the Twisted Candles, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, and The Clue in the Diary in the same edition.
You might wish to look for Applewood Books.

3betsytacy
Jul 27, 2011, 6:44 pm

The short answer is that if you want the original Nancy Drew you should stick with the Applewood editions. The long answer requires a trip through the convoluted history of Nancy Drew editions and changes in her character over the years. The controversial books appear to be books 1 through 34, however. These underwent major revisions in the late 1950s/early 1960s, and the original 25-chapter format was changed to the new standard 20-chapter format. Supposedly this was done partly to remove racial stereotypes in the text but many other changes were made, too. The Flashlight Grosset & Dunlap editions of books 1-34 are definitely revised because they are in the 20-chapter format (I checked the table of contents on Amazon). I think the Grosset & Dunlap editions would be perfectly fine to give your cousin for books 35-56 though. These were written with the 20-chapter format in mind. When I first read the books myself I read some original editions and some of the revised editions and don't think I ever noticed a problem, but now as an adult it bothers me to think of all the changes! As for the books after 57 (the series was published by Simon and Schuster starting at that time), that's another big change. I was working in a bookstore at that time and remember reading that in some of those books Nancy often had to be rescued by Ned, rather than getting herself out of scrapes.

I found a few overviews of the series changes that might help you: http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/formats.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nancy_Drew_books.

I applaud you for taking your cousin under your wing and nurturing her love of reading!

Oh, and one thing about the Applewood editions. I wouldn't worry too much about the dust jacket. I have one of their editions of the Little Maid books, and it's a more permanent type of dustjacket than what you find on a hardcover book. It's closer in look and feel to a regular paperback book.

4aluvalibri
Jul 27, 2011, 6:48 pm

Very informative, betsytacy (another series I love!), thank you!!

I think the Applewood editions look gorgeous. I really like the original dust jackets, and am glad they decided to print a facsimile.

5leahbird
Jul 27, 2011, 7:57 pm

thanks! i too think the Applewood covers are beautiful, i just worry with dust jackets and children- they usually aren't a very good match.

i was trying to read up on all the variables but it gets RATHER confusing. thanks for your short summation betsytacy! it's very helpful. i'd say we would stop at the end of the original 56 "Mystery Stories" rather than slough through the add-ons.

at least i can rule out the Flashlight editions, which is a big help. i'll probably get the Applewood, although i'm trying to see if i can possibly snag some of the original G&D's to complete her set.

6betsytacy
Jul 27, 2011, 10:15 pm

Glad I could help with the summary! I wouldn't worry about the dustjacket though. The best way I can describe the Applewood dustjacket style is that it's kind of like a thick paperback book cover folded over the attached paperback book cover, so it's pretty sturdy and doesn't come off very easily. It should be fine for a 14-year-old. Keep an eye out at used book stores and library book sales for old Nancy Drew editions, too. They aren't too hard to find. And many of the older Grosset & Dunlap editions (yellow nonglossy covers) have the full 25 chapters. When Annie is finished with Nancy Drew, you may want to track down the Dana Girl mysteries. They were also written under the Carolyn Keene name and feature mystery-solving sisters Jean and Louise Dana. They have an even more complicated publication history (they've gone out of print twice and were renumbered at some point), but I really liked them a lot as a kid. Happy hunting!

7Keeline
Jul 28, 2011, 10:07 am

It looks as if this topic is pretty well covered. The first 34 books were originally 25 chapters and about 214 pages with copyrights between 1930 and about 1957 for these volumes. The revision process spanned between 1959 and 1977 for Nancy Drew and the new volumes followed a new publisher formula of 20 chapters and 180 pages. Part of the reason for this was the rise of automated machines to do the printing and binding. A standard length helps for the calibration of machines like this. It is also helpful for keeping the production costs consistent. Otherwise, the publisher might print fewer copies of longer books to maximize profit based on cost of materials.

Many of the revised stories were simply cut down versions of the originals. Some, however, are completely new stories. My favorite extreme example is The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion. The 1941 text is about stolen heirlooms. The 1971 text is about stolen missile parts at Cape Canaveral and there is a scene with a crate of exploding oranges. There are similar extreme examples for the Hardy Boys.

The yellow spine format first appeared in 1962. The older copies of these tend to have blue multi-picture endpapers (collector descriptive term). Usually, when a title was revised, the endpapers became the white multi-picture endpapers. Hence, for some titles the blue endpapers can be a clue that the book may be an original text version. The overall design of the spine and covers also changes and after a bit of practice you can spot these across the room. However, some titles, like Secret of the Old Clock, were revised before the move to pictorial cover format (another collector term) in 1962 and the revised texts had blue endpapers for several years. This means that you can't find all 34 volumes in OT (original text) in the yellow spine format. Look to the copyright dates and the numbers of chapters and pages.

Do not assume that the copyright date is the printing date -- very important.

Applewood reprinted at least 16-18 of the titles. However, they now issue only the first 6 books and the others have been allowed to go out of print. Many times when you find some of the scarcer of these books the sellers ask very high prices for them. If the price is more than $20 then it is probably better to seek out an original text copy in blue tweed (collector term) without a jacket that is easier to find on eBay and the like.

Yes, the Dana Girls are usually a second series that Nancy Drew collectors seek. The first four books (1934-1935) were ghostwritten by the man who worked on the early Hardy Boys books, Leslie McFarlane. Many others were ghostwritten by Mildred A. Wirt (Benson) and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. As already noted, there were a couple periods where the Dana Girls went out of print for years at a time:

1-13 (1934-1944) *thick purple cloth editions, green editions, etc.

14-30 (1953-1968) *volume 14 was an old unpublished manuscript initially planned for 1945

1-13 (1976) *renumbered later volumes of the original series, possibly revised slightly
14-17 (1976-1979) *new stories

The Dana Girls were mentioned in two issues of a graphic novel for Nancy Drew from PaperCutz.

Keep in mind that the older stories are richer in description and complexity of plot but that they are also products of the time in which they were written. There are some stereotypes in them and those should be discussed with any young people reading them.

LT has no effective facility to distinguish between original text and revised text versions of Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins and other series books where the same title was reused on a sometimes completely different story. This is because the copyright date is not considered as part of the description in terms of matching. Hence, I cannot readily find other people with the 1941 Moss-Covered Mansion without a lot of manual effort. This is not an easy situation to solve but serves to illustrate one of the edge cases in listing books here.

James

8leahbird
Jul 28, 2011, 1:02 pm

thanks James!

Applewood reprinted at least 16-18 of the titles. However, they now issue only the first 6 books and the others have been allowed to go out of print.

well, that's not what i wanted to hear! ;) drat. i'm so particular about books in a series matching each other so i had hoped the Applewood editions would work but i guess not. looks like i'm in for some hunting.

9Keeline
Jul 28, 2011, 3:53 pm

If you want to tilt at that windmill then you need to be prepared to pay for the privilege. Some Applewood titles are listed very high, $100, $200, or more. I don't say they are worth that. For my money I'd rather put it to vintage copies. Applewood stopped because the sales were weak and the licensing fees were going up.

James

10K8AD
Dez 5, 2019, 4:19 pm

Here is a link to an explanation of the Editions and what they looked like and how many chapters were in each. It should answer all your questions. http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/text.html

11K8AD
Dez 5, 2019, 4:22 pm

I just noticed the date of your post (2011). I just discovered this site while performing a google search of how many chapters are in each book (a gift of a starter box set for a great-niece born in 2011). Sorry it took me so long to reply, if I had only known I would have posted it sooner!

122wonderY
Dez 5, 2019, 4:24 pm

Welcome anyway.

I'm surprised that your post >10 K8AD: wasn't automatically classed as Spam. The algorithm doesn't like links in first posts.