The original Nancy Drew books were full of descriptive imagery, suspense, and drama. Nancy was bold, sassy, and super independent as opposed to the faster paced, less descriptive, and more reserved Nancy that are the revisions.
Mildred Wirt Benson wrote most of the original text stories, 23 out of 30 (1-7, 11-25, 30). Her views on what Nancy should be were different than the more traditional and reserved views of Harriet Adams (The daughter of the creator, Edward Stratemeyer). Because of this, the direction of the books changed under Harriet’s direction. The original stories were 25 chapters, and 200+ pages long. In 1959, the revisions began. These have 20 chapters and around 180 pages. Stereotypes, prejudices, and other things that were outdated were removed from the originals, and “modern things”, such as electric lights, were added.
The original text versions were exciting and well written, and the revisions took a lot of the detail out, and quickened the pace of the stories. The reason why the books were shortened is because now that TV was getting popular, they felt that children had a shorter attention span than readers had prior to the popularity (or invention) of the television. The revisions also have some plot holes in them, and the characters aren’t as developed. They also added new characters that weren’t in the originals, such as Burt and Dave (Bess and George’s special friends and Ned’s college friends). Furthermore, they took out most of Helen’s scenes and replaced her with Bess and George. Nancy changed in appearance as well as personality. Her style changed to be more modern for the times that the revisions occurred, her hair went from blonde to a reddish color (this is because around 1957, on the cover of #35, The Haunted Showboat, Nancy was painted with more reddish hair. After this, the cover artist at the time, Rudi Nappi, decided to continue painting her with this hair color because it gave more contrast between characters on the covers since Bess is a blonde like Nancy was, and George is a brunette), and her car went from being a blue roadster to being a blue convertible.
Out of the 34 books that were revised, 8 of them were given completely different plots! These are volumes 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 17, and 18. It’s really fun and interesting to compare! Books 35-56 weren’t revised, because they were written at the time that the other ones were being rewritten, so they only have the 20 chapters to begin with. 1962 is when the cover changes started. They got rid of the dust jackets and began printing the cover art right on the book. Most of the originals are the blue books that originally came with dust jackets (which can be hard to find still intact). However, there are some yellow matte books that have the original 25 chapters! For the yellow matte books, #s 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 were only released in this format with the revised text, and there was only one printing of the original text for #7. All the rest can be found occasionally with the original text in this format!
The copyright dates in Nancy Drew books can't always be trusted. For example, just because one of the books says its from 1930, doesn't mean that it is! It could actually be from the 50s or so! The only way to know the correct copyright date, editions, and basic value is with the Farah's Guide, which is basically the Nancy Drew Bible. Every Nancy Drew collector and seller should have this guide! You can buy it on Amazon for $60, and it is well worth the money if you're serious about collecting!
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