True To Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew was depicted as an independent-minded teenager, usually sixteen, but gradually aging to eighteen by the mid 1940s (this was changed when the original books were later revised; she is always eighteen) who has graduated from high school. Apparently affluent, she maintains an active social, volunteer, and sleuthing schedule, as well as participating in athletics and the arts, but is never shown as working for a living or acquiring job skills. Nancy is also unhindered by the Great Depression and World War II.



Nancy's character
Nancy is blue-eyed, bold and adventuresome. Her hair colour is described variously as "strawberry blond" and "titian," rather than the less glamorous "red." She becomes involved in mysteries without always being a welcome presence. She is known to always carry a flashlight, occasionally carries a gun (1-5 early volumes only), and actually uses it against dangerous animals at Shadow Ranch, drives in her blue roadster at high speeds on gravel roads, breaks and enters, trespasses, sneaks about, opens locked doors, lockers, chests, drawers, etc., and is rather high-handed with adults, including law enforcement, from time to time. She is more courageous than her friends, and undaunted by the money or time spent in investigating a clue. Hannah voices her concerns about Nancy's behaviour, but is clearly the Drews' employee in these early tales; her opinion is often discredited.

Emma Robert had voice her attention to reprise her role as Nancy Drew. All three or trio will reprise their role. Jerry Weintraub will produce and Andrew Fleming will direct the movie. Although no news yet on the plot and storyline so far.

With the start of the 1940s, Nancy began to evolve into a less reckless, and also less obviously affluent, character with The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion. Her fashion style becomes a bit more casual, and she no longer pursues angles that greatly endanger herself or her friends. Her car changes makes and models a few times, finally becoming a blue convertible in the post-World War II era. She pursues hobbies, particularly art and music, but also dancing, and various athletics, including sailing, swimming, skin-diving, tennis, and even trick riding. Her age also gradually changes to eighteen. Other than some minor allusions in 1943's The Clue in the Jewel Box, the war rationing doesn't seem to affect River Heights, or Ned Nickerson.


Many of Nancy's mysteries in this era involve her application of knowledge gained from avid reading, or from consultation with teachers, professors, or other experts, and this is passed on to the readers, a trend which grows and continues to the end of the series. Nancy thus shows greater respect for authority figures, such as her father, the local police, and others willing to help with her investigations.


Although still illustrated as very mature during the war years, this style gives way to a more casual, stereotypical teen appearance by the end of the decade, partially due to a switch in illustrators. Book covers began to replace the flapper style favored on early jackets with a conservative, more classic appearance. Following the post-war trend for young people to have their own, casual style, instead of dressing the same as adults, Nancy becomes less constrained. Sweater or blouse and skirt ensembles, as well as a pageboy hairstyle, are introduced in 1948, and continue with new artist Bill Gillies, who updated 10 covers and illustrated three new jackets from 1950 to 1952. Gillies invented the modern-era trademark as a spine symbol: Nancy in side profile with a quizzing glass. Benson wrote her last volume for the series, The Clue of the Velvet Mask, in 1953.

Nancy is eighteen, not sixteen; her mother died when she was age three, not ten. Hannah Gruen is a motherly figure who helped raise Nancy, and at times restricts her rash actions. Aunt Eloise Drew, a smart New Yorker who was Nancy's aunt, is frequently either chaperone or hostess to Nancy's New York adventures. Nancy also has a dog named Togo who helps her in her cases.
Other characters are developed as well. George Fayne develops into a more personable, but still masculine girl, while Bess becomes obsessed with boys and food. George and Bess are given their own respective boyfriends early in the 1950s, Burt Eddleton and Dave Evans, both chums of Nancy's boyfriend Ned Nickerson.
When the original stories began to be updated in 1959, Helen Corning became an older friend of Nancy's, and is bolder than the original Helen, serving as actual sleuthing sidekick in the first four volumes. The stage is also set to explain her departure from regular involvement with Nancy -- Helen becomes engaged; and in her last appearance before she is married, she is planning her wedding while she helps Nancy sleuth. She and her husband Jim Archer appear in some later volumes, and revised versions of several stories as well.

Rudy Nappi, artist from 1953 to 1979, illustrates a more average teenager, but still in very preppy, conservative clothing. Nancy's hair changes to strawberry-blonde, reddish-blonde or titian by the end of the decade. The change, due to a printing ink error, was so favorable that it was adopted in the text. Mrs. Adams herself even explained regular changes in Nancy's hair color as possibly induced by the young sleuth's beautician. In 1962, all Grosset and Dunlap books become "picture covers," to reduce costs. Several of the 1940s cover illustrations were updated by Rudy Nappi for this change, but contained the old story. The books themselves were gradually updated, in some cases only sharing a title with the original, with completely new plots and settings. For example, the original Lilac Inn really was only a setting for a crime. In the 1961 revision, it is the setting for almost all of the story. Settings in the series involve travel to several different regions in the United States, and also international destinations, including France, Peru, Scotland, Hong Kong and Africa.
None of the stories in hardcover issue today as published by Grosset and Dunlap are older than 1957. In 1979, two million copies of Nancy Drew books were sold