Who is Nancy Drew?  She is in fact the creation of a man called Edward Stratemeyer.  This man clearly had some vision for in the few lines of an early character sketch and plot he had formulated a young female heroine who would capture the imagination of readers young and old for generations to come.

Nancy Drew started her literary life as a plucky sixteen year old.  Her father, Carson Drew, is already famous in the field of mystery as an attorney so it only seemed natural that Nancy would take up this interest in solving mysteries and putting the world to rights.  From then on Nancy Drew has been traipsing through a seemingly unending number of mysteries that has seen her solve such varied crimes starting with a ‘Secret of an Old Clock’ to ‘Werewolf in a Winter Wonderland.”

The key to her success seems to rest in her self-possessed confidence accompanied with a firm sense of fair play.  Her sweet nature and amazing array of talents provided a positive, if somewhat unrealistic, role model for young women.  Nancy drew could do anything she turned her hand to whether it was sports or the arts or cooking or the art of understanding human motivations.  She was the first superwoman goddess to whom everything came naturally.

Added to this, the poor girl had lost her mother at three (10 in earlier books).  This instant tugging on our heartstrings only served to make her achievements seem even more remarkable and courageous.  It also made her human, one of us, someone who had known life’s tragedies yet continued to strive forward and greet each adventure with a sense of purpose and determination.

As the years passed, and attitudes towards women fluctuated also, Nancy Drew’s character seemed to change with each era she had to deal with.  The main source of tension in readers familiar with the early incarnation of Nancy was that as the years moved on, her independent resilience seems to give way to something far less tomboyish.

Others saw it as a way of moving away from the values of the years in between the wars and making her more modern and relevant.  She did seem to become less sassy as the decades rolled on into the eighties.  Some have even pointed out that even the illustrations changed.  Early drawings depicted Nancy as the center figure making proactive decisions in her hunt for clues and criminals where as in much later books she could be seen much more in frightened poses or images where she is being chased and pursued.

Whatever the vagaries in fashions and attitudes, one thing has remained constant, Nancy Drew has a loyal and devoted fan base to whom the books deliver on many levels.  Not only is there the thrill and challenge of trying to work out who actually did it, but more importantly there is a positive and strong female figure at the helm, showing how good honest values of determination, persistence and street smarts, will prevail in the end.