Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 1, 1994                   TAG: 9312310036
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by Lynn Van Matre/ Chicago Tribune
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT NANCY DREW

She's closing in on 65 years in the sleuthing business and taken more than her share of hard knocks along the way. Since 1930, the year she made her dashing debut in "The Secret of the Old Clock," Nancy Drew has been beaten, choked, tossed into car trunks, set upon by spiders, nearly strangled by snakes and bonked on the bean by falling stage scenery.

But as countless villains have discovered to their chagrin, it takes more than a beating or choking to stop America's favorite fictional teen-age detective. Come what may, Nancy invariably manages to outfox her tormentors, solve the mystery and emerge prettily triumphant.

Her book sales have proved just as durable.

Over the last six decades, more than 80 million copies of Nancy's adventures have been snapped up by fans, who can read about her exploits in 17 languages and a variety of formats, including a spicy latter-day Nancy Drew Files paperback series featuring plenty of romance. Meanwhile, thousands of nostalgic adults never have outgrown their fancy for Nancy, turning such memorabilia as Nancy Drew lunch boxes, games, puzzles and dust-jacketed early editions of the series into hot collectibles.

What's the appeal? According to longtime Drew fan Plunkett-Powell, the blue-eyed blond sleuth initially captured readers' hearts thanks to her courage, intelligence, exciting adventures and enviable lifestyle.

"With an unlimited supply of luck, this gothic Girl Scout could do anything, while her father, the illustrious Carson Drew, provided a steady stream of emotional support (and spending money) to aid her noble pursuits," the author notes in this chattily informative guide to the life and times of the beloved girl gumshoe.

Fun reading for both longtime and new Drew devotees, the paperbound "Nancy Drew Scrapbook" offers an unabashedly affectionate overview of the Nancy Drew phenomenon, covering everything from the history and appeal of the series and its various formats to changes in Nancy's hair color and dating habits and details on collectibles and fan clubs. The guide also delves into what once was the biggest Nancy Drew mystery of all - who actually wrote the books.

The brainchild of the prolific Edward Stratemeyer, whose Stratemeyer Syndicate also launched such popular children's series as Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins, the Nancy Drew series was credited to Carolyn Keene, a pseudonym for various authors over the years. For five decades, Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, was assumed to be Carolyn Keene, and the syndicate's notorious penchant for secrecy discouraged further digging for details. In reality, Mildred Wirt Benson wrote the vast majority of the Drew mysteries from the 1930s until the mid-1950s.

Benson, a onetime flapper still going strong at age 88 (she now writes a weekly features column for the Toledo Blade), didn't break her vow of silence to the Stratemeyer Syndicate until 1980, when her authorship surfaced during the course of a publishing rights lawsuit.