Will the Real Carolyn Keene Please Stand Up - the Lives of the Creators of Nancy Drew

When I stumbled across this on Amazon.com, I was not sure if I really wanted to buy it.  After all, there are already a number of books out there about the "creators" of Nancy Drew - ones that focus on the Stratemeyer Syndicate itself, others that focus on Mildred Wirt Benson, and some that focus on the evolution and impact of the character, Nancy Drew.  Did I really need another one?  And I had no knowledge of the author, Christine Keleny, other than the brief information provided on Amazon about her.  So, I debated back and forth, but I finally listened to that insistent voice in the back of my mind that kept saying, "if you want all things Nancy Drew related, then you must have this," and I bought it.  Took me a bit before I finally picked it up and read it, but now, I can honestly say, I am so thoroughly glad I bought it, because this book is not just another analytical study of the individuals who created and wrote Nancy Drew - no, this book is actually a well-written, well-researched prose biography of the three people who had the most influence in the character of Nancy Drew - Edward Stratemeyer, his daughter Harriet, and his young ghostwriter, Mildred Wirt!

 

Will The Real Carolyn Keene Please Stand Up gives fans a fresh new look at the history of Nancy Drew's creation. For a character that has been around for nearly 100 years, with new stories continuously published over the course of those nearly ten decades, Nancy Drew has had plenty of books look at her creators, her longevity, her enduring appeal, her pop icon status, and just about every other aspect you can think of as it relates to the girl detective.  Authors like Melanie Rehak, Michael G. Cornelius, Carolyn Carpan, Bobbie Ann Mason, LuElla D'Amico, Emily Hamilton-Honey, Geoffrey S. Lapin, and many others have offered so much insight over the years with books, essays, and countless hours of research on the subject of Nancy Drew and her creation; yet, surprisingly, in all of that time, not once has there ever been a historical look at those creators told in a prose, biographical fashion.  Until now.  Author Christine Keleny (Christine Keleny Books) is not only a writer, but she is also an editor, book designer, and publisher, whose works cross into historical fiction, mystery, adventure, and memoir.  This particular book, while offering well researched biographies on Stratemeyer, Adams, and Wirt-Benson, is also infused with a certain level of historical fiction - since a lot of the conversations and character-thoughts expressed throughout the book are not necessarily factual - but based on everything we knew about these three, they very well could be!

 

Keleny opens her book in the most obvious place - the now-infamous 1980 trial that resulted from the lawsuit filed by Grosset & Dunlap against the Stratemeyer Syndicate and Simon & Schuster over the rights to Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the numerous other series G&D had been publishing for the Syndicate for more than half-a-century.  An aging Harriet Stratemeyer Adams is on the stand, being questioned regarding the creation of Nancy Drew and the books' original author, which sends Adams on a trip down memory lane ... a trip that the reader gets to follow as we turn back the pages of time to 1887, when a young Edward Stratemeyer is striving to become an author, feeling it in is veins, despite his father's and brother's attempts to dissuade him to pick a more steady career.  The book progresses at a fairly fast rate, as we jump ahead one, two, three, or even more years at a time, following Edward as he meets his wife ... as he begins selling his stories ... as he has two daughters ... as his books become so popular he creates a syndicate of writers to help him get his ideas into book form faster.  We read how the twentieth century saw a huge rise in the success of his children's series - The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Ruth Fielding, and many others, eventually leading to 1927 and the publication of The Hardy Boys.  This, as we all know, led to his creation of a companion series for girls, a girl detective that only one person could write - a young ghostwriter who had taken over the Ruth Fielding series for his Syndicate - Mildred Augustine Wirt.

 

Keleny alternates between the various players.  Some chapters focus on Edward, while others look at what Mildred was doing, while others take a look at Harriet and her sister, Edna.  Keleny's story is so well-written, that the reader can visually picture each of the characters as they act and speak on the page, and honestly, this would transition so beautifully into a movie, or even a television mini-series.  Edward, Harriet, and Mildred are all developed far beyond their typical "this is what research tells us about them" found in most books; instead, we get living, breathing characters with emotions, with hopes and dreams, with frustrations and losses, with times of happiness and times of mourning.  Yes, the scenes portrayed throughout the book come from the Stratemeyer Records on file with the New York Public Library ... from the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa ... from researchers such as Geoffrey S. Lapin (to whom the author credits having done considerable work to uncover Wirt's connection as the original author of the Nancy Drew books) and James Keeline ... and to the descendants of the Stratemeyer family itself ... however, they are expressed through a prose tale that draws the reader in until, just like the children's series that are the subject matter of these individuals, he or she cannot help but turn page after page after page to see what is going to happen next!

 

The one thing I think Keleny does perfectly with this book is acknowledge the fact that there was never just "one" Carolyn Keene.  Sure, Edward Stratemeyer created the idea and the initial outlines for the Nancy Drew series.  Sure, Mildred Wirt (Benson) wrote the original books in the series.  Sure, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams took over the character and molded her into the later image that so many adults today remember her as.  Yet, it was not just one of these three that "created" Nancy Drew; rather, it was the amalgamation of all three - Stratemeyer, Wirt, and Adams - that ultimately defined Nancy Drew and gave her the characteristics and charisma that has helped her endure for nearly 100 years non-stop.  While so many other series fell away, many long forgotten - Nancy Drew is still at the forefront, still recognized as the quintessential girl detective (let's face it - any book, any movie, any television show that features a female detective will always make at least one, if nor more, reference to Nancy Drew).  And this book is the perfect story of how these three individuals, in their own special ways, combined to make (literally!) the world's greatest amateur female detective.

 

Now, for all this praise (and I really did enjoy the book!), that's not to say it's perfect.  It is always a bit off-putting when I come across grammatical errors or misspellings in a published book - and this book had a number of them.  When talking about the gala thrown by Simon & Schuster after they took over publication of the Stratemeyer properties, it states, "[w]asn't Nancy's popularity proven at the gala 15th anniversary party put on by Simon & Schuster for Nancy Drew..." (p. 5).  This was actually referring to the 50th anniversary gala. Later, when we read about Edward acting out a story he is writing, his wife "knew that this roll-playing was important to Edward..." (p. 20).  I believe the author meant "role" playing.  These are only a couple - there are others that could be listed, but it is a reminder that books are no longer edited with precision as they used to be.  While these are small things, and they don't make the book any less readable, they do (for me, at least) present a jarring moment, at which I'm taken out of the story as my mind immediately focuses on the error.

 

As an aside, Keleny does throw in a moment of Hardy Boys history for us, as she gives us a few pages of Leslie McFarlane and his first communications with Stratemeyer (pp. 108 - 114), which ultimately led to his taking on the Hardy Boys books, and later, the first few Dana Girls stories.  There are also moments with members of the Garis family, as well as the addition of Andrew Svenson as a partner of the Syndicate.  Thus, the author gives readers a well-rounded story of everything that was going on in the lives of these three creators, and how it all impacted their work on, and in Harriet's case, her utter devotion to Nancy Drew.

 

Who was the real Carolyn Keene?  Well, once you read this book, I believe you will be in a much stronger position to answer that question, and you will be sparked to delve deeper and do your own research and studies to get a better understanding of everything (and everyone!) that went into creating our favorite teen detective!  Is every word of this book true, and did every thing that is described in this book actually take place the way it is written here?  Probably not.  But that does not in any way lessen this book's value in the annals of Nancy Drew studies, and it certainly should not detract from anyone's enjoyment in reading the story.  

 

RATING:  10 last ditch attempts to sell the Syndicate out of 10 for a well-researched, superbly written story of the lives, loves, hardships, and successes of the three individuals who, in one way or another, created Nancy Drew.

Kay Tracey Mystery Stories No. 2 - The Strange Echo

In 1934, the Stratemeyer Syndicate offered  up a new series for girls - the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories.  The first book in the series, The Secret of the Red Scarf, was not a particularly good read - it was felt like a jumbled hodge-podge of circumstances and events that were mashed together to create a mystery.  While this second book in the series was written by the same ghostwriter, Elizabeth M. Duffield Ward, I thought perhaps since it was based upon an outline from a different Stratemeyer sister (Harriet, instead of Edna), the story might be more straightforward and more coherent.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

 

The premise for The Strange Echo is a bit unique, so I can at least give the Syndicate credit for trying to come up with something different.  The main mystery involves some unusual echoes that are heard when Kay Tracey is visiting her friends, Wilma and Betty Worth, at Lost Lake.  The echoes seem to form partial words, but they do not make sense, and Kay must figure out what the echoes mean before she can figure out what is really happening at Lost Lake.  And this is where the mystery starts to go off the deep end, so to speak. It seems in addition to "the strange echo" that is heard, the tourist community is also plagued by thunder and lightning storms that bring no rain; odd glowing lights coming from a nearby valley; ghostly apparitions seen in that valley; and other sundry incidents that have Mr. and Mrs. Worth concerned about the girls going out to investigate the echoes.  Of course, Kay is not afraid, as she does not believe in the supernatural, and she knows everything has a logical explanation.

 

What is not logical are the numerous other mysteries in this book that, eventually, all tie into the strange events taking place at Lost Lake.  First, there is the foreign woman Kay meets in a department store in town who she overhears talking on the phone about echoes in the valley and who appears to be hiding something in her purse.  Second, there is the local bookseller who is upset because an antique book written in a foreign language has had pages ripped out of it, ruining its value (can you see where this is going?).  Third, there is the elderly man Kay and Mr. Worth pick up on their way to Lost Lake who is also headed to the lake in an attempt to locate a fortune his parents supposedly buried many years before when the area was destroyed by a landslide, which, coincidentally, is what created the lake (more on that later).  Fourth, there is the mysterious cabin deep in the woods, in which Kay sees a young man, along with the foreign woman AND the elderly man she met on her way to Lost Lake! Fifth, there is the "Scientific Instrument Company," from which a "sound device" is stolen.  The story has so many threads, Kay and the Worth twins hop from one direction to the next, and one wonders how in the world all of these could possibly be tied together by the end?!?!

 

In addition to the strange echo being heard, a major emphasis is placed on Mr. Nelson and his search for his family's treasure in Faraway Valley (yes, that is the name given the valley just below Lost Lake).  He appears repeatedly in the story, and Kay eventually learns that his story about the town being buried beneath a landslide many years ago, ultimately forming Lost Lake in the area, is true.  What is interesting is that Lost Lake is, indeed, a real lake located in Oregon that, once a year, completely disappears down a big hole in the lake bed (which hydrologists believe fills during the winter when streams leading to the lake are high, and then during the summer when rainfall lessens, the lake slowly drains).

 

What is more interesting about Lost Lake, however, is that 28 years after this book came out, the Stratemeyer Syndicate published their 24th Dana Girls mystery, titled, aptly enough, The Secret of Lost Lake (1962).  And before you ask, yes, the mystery centers around a community buried under a landslide many years prior, which landslide created the "lost lake."  There are other elements from this Kay Tracey mystery that appear in the Dana Girls' book - an elderly individual (in this case, a woman), whose parents were killed in the landslide, searching for a treasure in the area; unscrupulous people trying to find the treasure first; and a clue to the mystery being heard in a mysterious echo bouncing around in the valley!  In addition, one of the characters in Lost Lake is named "Simpson," which is also the name of the department store in The Strange Echo where Kay overhears the foreign woman speaking.  I suppose Harriet was running short on ideas for stories in the early '60s and decided to simply recycle a plot from a series that was not in print at the time!

 

A few tidbits from the story that are worth noting - the first is when Mrs. Tracey and Kay's cousin Bill are discussing the young sleuth, Mrs. Tracey observes that "Kay is like her father ... Roger was a newspaperman by profession, but I always felt that he should have been a detective.  He had a passion for apparently unimportant little details that most people would have passed by.  He used to work out the solution of criminal cases just for fun, and he was usually correct" (pp. 17-18), to which Bill replies, "He would have made a good lawyer.  And his daughter is like him -  a regular chip off the old block" (p. 18).  This description almost reads like a mixed description of Anthony Parker and Carson Drew!  The second tidbit is the breakfast served by Mrs. Worth at their cottage near Lost Lake - ham, eggs, and "corn pone" (p. 37).  I had never heard of corn pone before, so I had to look it up.  It turns out corn pone is a dense, unleavened bread made from cornmeal, salt, and water and usually fried or based in a skillet (sometimes using bacon drippings for flavor).  One thing we can always count on series books doing is teaching us something new every time we read one!

 

The final observation I want to make regarding this story is the utter vagueness used with regard to all of the mechanical and technological devises used in the story.  The author is so nebulous about all of them that it leaves the reader in a state of disbelief about all of them.  From the ambiguous name of the scientific company - "Scientific Instrument Company - to the vague descriptions of the various devices, such as the sound distortion machine, the strong wind device, the mechanical gadgets used to create glowing eyes and growls, and the unexplained tool used to draw in Kay and her cousin Bill, causing her to see distorted images; none of the technology is ever fully explained, nor is there any description of how they work (nor even any technical name given to the devices).  The story reads almost like one written by an elementary school student who wants to use strange devices but has no scientific knowledge to describe the machines or explain how they actually work.  This is a great disappointment coming from a Syndicate that thrived for many years on including detailed, educational explanations in their series books that provided readers with true learning experiences.  (For that matter, the fact that the "foreign" woman Hilda Arno, as well as her sister, Mrs. Alice Crosby, are both referred to as having accents and referenced as foreign women on multiple occasions, the author never actually identifies from what "foreign" country the women hail, leaving the reader to guess as to the national heritage of these sisters!)

 

The art for the original edition of this book appears to have once again provided by E.A. Furman (1879-1965), featuring a cover painting that shows Kay searching for those missing pages of the book in the isolated cabin and an interior illustration that finds the girls following Mr. Nelson into the woods.  The later Books, Inc. reprint of the book has another painted cover by "ELAINE," that unidentified artist known only by the one name, always written in all caps. Still another edition of the book, reprinted in 1964 by Berkley Highland Books, gives readers a third cover art, which depicts a rather exciting moment when Kay, Wilma, and Betty are out on the lake with a quickly approaching storm.  This third cover art is beautifully rendered and, quite honestly, could easily have been used for a Nancy Drew cover, since the characters are a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette with expressions that accurately display the personalities of Nancy, Bess, and George from that series.  The artist is unidentified, but I personally find this cover to be the most dramatic of them all and the one I prefer the most.

 

I must admit, these first two books do not provide high hopes for the rest of the series.  After reading these two, our book club has decided to move on to other books, as these are simply too convoluted and not written well enough to hold our interest.  Perhaps one day, I might come back and give some other books in this series a chance (and who knows, since Mildred Wirt took over writing of the series with book three, perhaps it improved from there!); but, for now, I think I am giving the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories a rest.

 

RATING:  5 crumpled pages torn from an antique book out of 10 for at least giving readers a unique premise on which to base a mystery, even if it lacks a well-executed follow-through. 

 

 

Dana Girls Mystery Stories No. 2 - The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage

The journey through the Dana Girls Mystery Stories continues with this second book, published alongside By the Light of the Study Lamp and In the Shadow of the Tower as the breeder set for this series in 1934.  Written by Leslie McFarlane, author of original Hardy Boys stories, this is the second of the first four books in the series that he wrote (after which, Mildred Wirt took over the authorship of the series).  From everything I've read and heard, McFarlane did not enjoy writing this series at all; yet, what I find strange, is that I like these stories far better than I do his Hardy Boys stories (don't shoot me, Pam!).  I feel like Louise and Jean Dana have a lot more personality than the Hardys, and the constant antagonism between the Danas and Lettie Briggs is so much fun to read!  This second book serves as a great follow up to the sisters' first mystery.

 

The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage takes place a few months after the conclusion of the first mystery.  In Study Lamp, the girls were just starting their new school year at Starhurst; in this book, it is November (p. 96), and the Thanksgiving holidays are just around the corner (p. 144). I like this type of continuity in a series, and it appears the Syndicate made this decision to follow the seasons, as the reference to Thanksgiving appears in the outline written by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (which outline, it must be noted, was considerably more detailed and quite a bit longer than Edna's outline for the previous book!).  Moving time forward in a sequential manner such as this gives the books a sense of realism that helps overcome the fact that the Danas (like the Hardys, Nancy, and so many other series sleuths) never actually age, despite moving through the seasons and holidays year after year after year after year.  Ruth Fielding and Judy Bolton are just two of the few series book sleuths who actually did age as their respective series progressed.

 

The mystery this time around involves their English teacher, Miss Amy Tisdale, who disappears after receiving a strange note in class one day.  Louise and Jean think it odd, and so they decide to track down their teacher, especially after her parents reveal that Miss Tisdale did not come for a visit over the weekend as she normally does.  The Danas are already aware that Miss Tisdale has a twin sister, Alice, that is estranged from the family, and when following up on a lead in the small town of Hilton, the girls discover Mrs. Alice Brixton, their teacher's twin!  Of course, they discover the woman after finding her toddler daughter lost in the woods on the way to Hilton.  It is those series book coincidences that always help our favorite sleuths solve their mysteries!

 

It is a fairly interesting mystery, with somewhat cryptic clues, including coded messages that Miss Tisdale sends to her teacher where one must read every fourth word of the note in order to get the "real" message being sent!  The girls are determined to locate Miss Tisdale, even engaging the assistance of their Uncle Ned, who is only too willing to drive from Oak Falls to Penfield to help his nieces.  The fact that the kidnapper - one Sol Tepper (p. 36) - portrays himself as the injured party, having been cheated out of money by his former business partner, Mrs. Brixon's deceased husband, leaves the readers and the Dana Girls wondering how far he will go in order to get what he believes he is deserved. Ultimately, he also kidnaps Mrs. Brixton's young daughter to use both her and Miss Tisdale as bargaining chips.  When you stop and think about that, it makes you realize just how "adult" of a story this mystery could truly be!

 

As with McFarlane's first entry into the Dana Girls' series, this second book also features some pranks played between the Danas and Lettie Briggs. When the sisters leave Miss Tisdale's car parked just outside the school's entrance, Lettie secretly moves it, so that the Danas believe the car has been stolen (pp. 65); later, when a private detective hired by Miss Tisdale's mother shows up at the school to talk with the Danas, Jean informs Lettie a man is there to see her, causing the girl to make a fool of herself before the private detective (pp. 119-21); and later yet, when the sisters purchase all the food necessary to make a good Thanksgiving dinner for Mrs. Brixton and her daughter, Lettie slyly steal the food and replaces it with rocks inside the container (pp. 151-53).  What is odd about the last trick is that the "mystery of the vanished dinner was forgotten (p. 154), and Lettie is never truly revealed as the culprit or made to reveal what she did with the food (did she throw it out? did she give it to the cook? did she simply eat it herself?).

 

And since we are on the topic of the Danas driving Miss Tisdale's car, for two girls who do not have a car of their own, they certainly manage to find transportation to use in the course of solving mysteries.  In the first book, they had free use of Mrs. Grantland's car, and now, in this story, they are given use of Miss Tisdale's car until they are able to locate the missing teacher.  Although, before they gain use of the car in this book, they are forced to walk quite a distance to the town of Hilton in order to follow in the steps of their teacher (pp. 16-17).  McFarlane seems to be spatially-impaired in his storytelling, just as Mildred Wirt was time-impaired, as he writes about Louise and Jean walking distances in a relatively short amount of time, but later in the same book, he describes how they drive these distances, and the driving takes a bit of time (in the first mystery, it was their trips to the park; in this mystery, it is the girls' trips to Hilton).  

 

McFarlane does include some references to Charles Dickens' classic tale, David Copperfield, which is a book that Jean is having to study in her English class (p. 10).  The book is mentioned several times throughout the story, and in one instance, makes a point of discussing the tempest scenes from the book, with Jean shuddering at "what a squall that was" (p. 72).  This is a bit of foreshadowing (given McFarlane in the outline), since the girls, along with their Uncle Ned, later face quite a dastardly squall of their own while going up and down the river next to Hilton in search of Miss. Tisdale (pp. 98-99).  Of course, that buffeting snowstorm is not their only danger, because they are also faced with a speedboat heading straight for them, threatening to crash right into them (p. 99).  It is quite the coincidence, since McFarlane had a similar near-miss of a boating accident in The Hardy Boys' The Mystery of Cabin Island, only that was with ice boats instead of speedboats.  However, the boat incident in this book is detailed in the outline, so one cannot say McFarlane was simply recycling ideas - he was merely following the outline.

 

One thing NOT in the outline that McFarlane seems to enjoy doing is inserting the title of his mysteries into the story itself.  If you recall, at the end of the first book, the comment was made how the Danas would never forget how precious the jewels looked "by the light of the study lamp."  In this book, not only does Uncle Ned remark at the end that they must hurry home to Aunt Harriet because she will want to hear all about "the secret at Lone Tree Cottage" (p. 218), but earlier in the book, the author has the girls find their uncle waiting for them in their dorm room, reaching a newspaper "by the light of the study lamp" (p. 154).  I will be curious to see if, in the third book, McFarlane manages to find a way to integrate all three titles into his story!

 

Finally, something that takes place in the story I can't ignore is when Jean and Louise, along with Mrs. Crandall, come across a cabin deep in the woods, not far from the river.  They see Miss Tisdale in an upstairs window, but they are too far away to hear her or for her to hear them.  So, Jean quickly says, "I'll try sign language" (p. 130), at which point she holds "up her hands and [makes] motions with her fingers such as deaf mutes use" (p. 130).  At no time has it ever been mentioned that Jean knows actual sign language, nor do I ever recall her using it again over the course of this series.  I know people often joke about how Nancy Drew can do anything, knows every language, etc.; but I was not aware that the Dana Girls also had that same gift.  Being an interpreter for the deaf and knowing American Sign Language, this scene stuck out to me, and I wish the Stratemeyers had made use of this talent in Jean and wrote a story that actually did involve some deaf characters, so that Jean could have truly made use of her gift.

 

The internal illustrations are once again provided by Ferdinand E. Warren, and a couple of them offer up some dramatic scenes - from Miss Tisdale narrowly missing a man waiting in the road, to the girls and Mrs. Crandall facing off against some rather vicious guard dogs, to Jean being pushed off of a moving vehicle!  The details of the illustrations from these early series books are so vibrant, and it is a shame they eventually moved away from fully painted illustrations to simple like pictures that eventually began to resemble nothing much more than stick figure drawings.  Warren also provided the "shadow" illustrations for the cover collage. I am not sure who provided the cover art when the format was changed to the wrap-spine edition; however, this book did have a brief run as a free volume during Grosset & Dunlap's "This Volume Free" promotion, where anyone buying the first book in the series would get the second volume for free.

 

This second volume of the Dana Girls Mystery Stories proved to be just as entertaining as the first, and I am enjoying reading a series where the girls do not necessarily have all of the freedoms of their contemporaries, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys - while the girls do seem to come and go as they please quite a bit, those choices are not always without consequences, and often times it takes begging and pleadings, or for intervention by their Uncle Ned, before they can gain permission for their excursions.  I also am enjoying the playfulness of Jean, the spitefulness of Lettie, and the sternness of Mrs. Crandall.  These characters feel a bit more than just cardboard, copy-cutouts of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys.  The Dana Girls have their own personalities with restrictions that seem similar to Trixie Belden than other Stratemeyer sleuths!

 

One final note - it appears there was a spelling error on one of the internal illustrations with the first printing.  The scene where Jean jumps on the running board of Tepper's car, and he then pushes her off before he gets going (page 186) - in the first printing, the tag line below the illustration says he "threw JOAN from the machine" rather than "JEAN."  It was obviously caught right away, because the printings thereafter show the correct spelling her name as "JEAN."   As you can see from the illustration to the right, the name is "JOAN" rather than "JEAN." Compare that with the corrected illustration shown above in this blog post.  Not sure if this was a publisher error or an editor's error (honestly, I'm not even sure who creates these tagline for the internal illustrations); but I think this is the first time I've ever seen a series book with a glaring error like this on an illustration.  Definitely an oddity to keep en eye out for!

 

RATING:  8 games of mental algebra out of 10 for a fairly challenging mystery that was less about the "whodunnit" and more about finding the missing person!