Moxie and a Good Sense of Balance by Lynne Byall Benson

Author:Lynne Byall Benson [Benson, Lynne Byall]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Hamilton Books
Published: 2018-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Editing Nancy

The tone Mildred Wirt was taking in developing the first three manuscripts had pleased Edward Stratemeyer, and in fact Nancy’s just-so mix of relatable and aspirational made best sellers out of the series’ first five books, The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, The Bungalow Mystery, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, and The Secret of Shadow Ranch. But Edward Stratemeyer would never see its success.

Early on in the project’s development, he had been forced to withdraw from active oversight upon falling seriously ill with pneumonia in the winter of early 1930. He returned to his office greatly weakened the following March, only to fall ill once again. On May 10, 1930, Edward Stratemeyer died, mere days after the publication of The Secret of the Old Clock. He died with no male heir, but the syndicate was to be retained as a family concern. So his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, scrambled to learn everything she could about her father’s business, while Stratemeyer’s longtime assistant, Harriet Otis Smith, kept the publishing syndicate going in the immediate aftermath.

It is at this point that the series was increasingly drawn according to Harried Stratemeyer Adams’s views. And this was not always consonant with Mildred’s vision for Nancy. As far back as the development of The Mystery at Lilac Inn, Mildred recalled that “the syndicate’s new owner asked that I make the sleuth less bold and that abrupt sentence endings be avoided. In editing, a simple, ‘Nancy said’ became ‘Nancy said sweetly,’ ‘she said kindly,’ and the like, all designed to produce a less abrasive, more caring type of character.”1

Over the series’ long run Nancy would undergo innumerable changes: She would age from sixteen to eighteen. Her sense of fashion always changed to reflect the modes of the day in which each title was published (the cloche hats, drop-waist dresses, and heels of the1930s were spirited away; the Nancy of the 1940s favored victory rolls and sweater sets like any fashionable bobby-soxer). But these changes to Nancy’s character—changes influenced by Harriet, and no doubt changing societal mores—were more fundamental.

It was Harriet’s idea to give Nancy a boyfriend, which Mildred dutifully wrote into the seventh Nancy Drew Mystery, The Clue in the Diary. By the early 1940s, according to Rehak, Nancy Drew’s fans began writing the publisher, asking about the status of Nancy and Ned’s romantic relationship. Harriet asked Mildred to make Nancy’s interest in Ned more obvious—more feminized. Mildred resisted, insisting that romantic portrayals were not her strong suit. However, Harriet’s ideas prevailed in The Secret in the Old Attic, where Nancy “spends a considerable amount of time hoping [Ned] will invite her to the ‘big dance’ at Emerson College, showing some uncharacteristic signs of insecurity in the process. ‘Maybe Ned has another girl. . . . He has a perfect right to, of course.’”2

Nancy’s rival for Ned’s affections, Diane Dight, attempts to usurp Nancy’s place as Ned’s date instead. But while in the attic with Ned, solving the attic’s “secret,” Nancy sees a spider and faints into Ned’s arms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.