The Secret of the Old Clock

In 1926, Edward Stratemeyer of the Stratemeyer Syndicate sketched out ideas for a series of stories featuring a girl detective. He gave the outline of the first book to a young journalist named Mildred Wirt Benson and asked her to write the corresponding novel. This later became The Secret of the Old Clock. Benson was to use the pseudonym Carolyn Keene and couldn’t claim authorship of the book. The rights were retained by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. For her efforts, Benson was paid $125 to $250 for each book she wrote, which was the equivalent of three months’ salary for a reporter at the time. She went on to pen the bulk of the first 30 books in the series.

The Secret of the Old Clock was the beginning of the 175-book franchise known as The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. Grosset & Dunlap published the first 56 novels from 1930 to 1979. Simon & Schuster published the rest of the series, ending it in 2003. In 2004, the publisher launched an updated series called Nancy Drew: Girl Detective. This was followed by The Nancy Drew Diaries in 2013. Both spinoffs received mixed reviews and were less successful than the original series.

Given the length of time between the first novel and the most recent, one might anticipate that the character of Nancy Drew would undergo a radical transformation. For many years, however, this wasn’t the case. Nancy was perpetually 18 years old, and she didn’t hold a regular job or attend college. The latter issue was finally addressed in 1995 with the Nancy Drew on Campus series, which never gained much popularity. As time marched on, other efforts were made to update the character and give her a more contemporary feel. The most notable change of these was the CW television series that ran for four years, ending in 2023. Aside from radically changing the lead character, the TV show is set in the town of Horseshoe Bay, Maine. Nancy’s original hometown of River Heights was never pinpointed. It was nebulously described as somewhere in the Midwest, but in some books, this location shifted and was a few hours away from New York City.

Perhaps the greatest alteration to the character and the series was made in 1959. Edward Stratemeyer’s daughter, Harriet Adams, radically rewrote the earlier books in an attempt to update the material and remove offensive stereotypes. Her solution to the problem of racism was to entirely remove people of color from the novels. In addition, she created a more reserved and “ladylike” Nancy, who contrasted with Stratemeyer’s and Benson’s vision of a feisty heroine. The following revisions to The Secret of the Old Clock indicate the sort of material that was changed in the later books:

• The caretaker of the Topham cottage was originally Black and was locked up by the thieves only after they got him drunk.
• The 1959 edition describes the thieves stopping to eat dinner at an inn. In the original, they stopped to drink at a roadhouse. This would have been illegal during Prohibition.
• In the original, Ada Topham breaks an expensive vase in a shop rather than merely tearing a dress.
• In the original, Nancy is a 16-year-old high school graduate. She’s impulsive and headstrong. The 1959 revision describes her as 18, and her temperament is more sedate.
• In the 1930 edition, Nancy’s primary motivation for solving the mystery is her dislike of the social-climbing Tophams. The 1959 edition places more emphasis on her charitable feelings toward the true heirs.

Despite revisions, bowdlerization, and reboot misfires, the character of Nancy Drew retains her appeal almost 100 years later, suggesting that the world still has a place for independent girls to forge their own path in life.