Not many books transcend time like the Nancy Drew series. The popular series featuring the Nancy, the girl sleuth, and her friends Bess and George are still as popular today as they were when first penned more than 80 years ago. Many young girls were introduced to the series by picking up copies that once occupied their mother's bookshelves. My original copy of The Secret of the Old Clock had long since lost it's dust jacket when I first picked it up but the dark blue cover and orange imprinted letters were like a magnet drawing me in to countless hours of reading.
Nancy has undergone many changes and the formats have grown to include the Clue Crew, smaller paperbacks for younger readers, movies, ebooks, and even some reissues of her classic mysteries repackaged with retro infused covers.
But last Sunday I happened to catch a morning news program chronicling the life of MIldred Augustine Wirt Benson, author of 23 of the original books, which she wrote under the pen name of Carolyn Keene. Maybe I'd heard of her before and just forgot. But seeing photos of Millie Benson brought the stories back to life, revealing the real woman who banged out more than 135 children's books on her Underwood typewriter.
Millie was a reporter for the Toledo Blade, a newspaper my family subscribed to when I was growing up. I was probably reading her news articles and books at the same time. Black and white photos of her in a dugout canoe or taking a swan dive into the lake, and getting her pilots license at age 59 illustrated the spirit of Nancy was definitely alive in Millie Benson.
The old oak card catalog has disappeared but you can still access a public library online to locate a large collection of Nancy Drew books. She remained silent for many years about being the real Carolyn Keene till even her daughter had to ask her if it was really true that she was Nancy Drew.
Millie made about $500 for each book she wrote and never saw a dime of royalty money from book sales or movies. But somehow I think it was more important to her that the independant spirit of womanhood live on in her books. She had just finished typing her column at the Toledo Blade one day in 2002 when she took ill. Millie died at the age of 96.
Check out a Nancy Drew book or look for Nancy Drew: Girl Sleuth and the Women Who Dreated Her by Melanie Rehak. Read more about the life of Millie Benson on her web site.
