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The original proposal for nancy Drew suggested that her name be Stella Strong, Nell Cody, Helen Hale, or Diana Dare. |
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When Nancy Drew was introduced she wore cloche hats and gloves whenever she was out in public, as was proper in the 1930s. Later, in the ‘50s, she changed to sport dresses and rompers, and even—gasp—pants. |
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Nancy got her famous hair color by mistake: She was originally blonde, but when a printer’s error gave her hair a reddish cast in a cover illustration, the writers followed suit and described her thereafter as “titian-haired.” |
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Nancy’s father gave her her trusty blue roadster as a birthday gift. After a brief stint as a maroon roadster, it went back to snappy Nancy Drew blue, eventually morphing into a blue convertible to keep up with the latest styles. In the new series launched in 2004, Nancy Drew: Girl Detective, Nancy drives a blue hybrid car. |
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Nancy’s mother died when she was ten, leaving her the ever-capable mistress of her household (with a little help from reliable Hannah Gruen). Later books changed this and made her three years old at the time of her mother’s death. |
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Carolyn Keene was a pen name, a cover for the series’ ghostwriters that worked so well the Authors Guild asked her to join their organization and she was listed in Who’s Who in America. Ms. Keene also regularly responded to fan mail. |
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Nancy began her adventures as a precocious sixteen-year-old who had apparently already graduated from high school. When the books were revised in the 1960s, she became an eighteen-year-old; the driving age had gone up and the sleuth without her trusty car would be no sleuth at all. |
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River Heights started out as a town located somewhere in the Midwest. As the books were revised the town migrated to the East Coast, close enough to New York for Nancy to travel into Chinatown to solve The Mystery of the Fire Dragon (1961). |
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Nancy’s tomboy friend George declared in The Secret of Shadow Ranch that her name was not short for Georgia—she was just plain George, named after her grandfather. But as times changed, so did her story: In 1960’s The Clue in the Old Stagecoach she confessed that it really was short for Georgia after all. |
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