Nancy Drew Books

I recently checked this out of the library to read & enjoyed it thoroughly. It is, as the title says, a history of the Nancy Drew series. It focusses primarily on the 2 women who did most of the writing for the first several books--Harriet Adams and Mildred Wirt.

If you're like me, after learning that Carolyn Keene didn't exist (and being terribly disappointed by this), you learned that Nancy had 2 "mothers"; the "good" mother was Mildred Wirt, who wrote an independent, confident heroine; the "bad" mother was Harriet Adams who rewrote the books to domesticate her.

It is, of course, far more complicated than that. Mildred Wirt was a splendidly independent woman herself, and she had a lot to do with the creation of the Nancy we all know and love. Harriet Adams, however, was also quite independent: She was running the Stratmeyer Syndicate in a time when women just didn't head companies.

Making these matters clear is one of Rehak's strengths. She's also clearly a dedicated and careful researcher and--more rare--someone who can write prose you want to readl