Happy Birthday Millie!

Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was born 120 years ago today, on 10 July 1905. You might not recognise her name, but I’m willing to bet the name Carolyn Keene rings a bell. Carolyn Keene is the pseudonym Wirt Benson shared with a number of other writers who have penned the Nancy Drew books over the years. Wirt Benson was the ghostwriter of 23 of the first 30 books in the original Nancy Drew series, the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. The character of Nancy Drew was created by Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer started the company when he found that the demand from publishers for the children’s books he was writing exceeded his output. To keep up with the demand for more books in series he had created, he hired freelance writers. Stratemeyer wrote the outlines, the freelancer would write the manuscript under the pen name for that series, making a flat rate for their efforts, and Stratemeyer would keep the copyright.

Before Stratemeyer died in 1930, he had provided the outlines for the first four Nancy Drew books to Wirt Benson, The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), The Hidden Staircase (1930), The Bungalow Mystery (1930), and The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930). After his death Harriet Otis Smith, Stratemeyer’s personal secretary, wrote the outline of the fifth book, The Secret at Shadow Ranch (1931), as well as editing that book and the fourth book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930), she is also credited with creating the characters Bess Marvin and George Fayne, cousins and good friends of Nancy Drew. From the sixth book on, the daughters of Stratemeyer, Edna Stratemeyer Squier and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, carried on with the creation of the outlines and editing of the books, until Edna left the Syndicate, and Harriet shouldered the work Edna had done, as well as her own. 

Wirt Benson made $125 per book for the first seven Nancy Drews, but Harriet wanted to cut the rate the ghostwriters were getting paid down to $100 per book. At this point Wirt Benson was an experienced writer, having graduated with a degree in English in 1925 from the University of Iowa, and she went on to be the first person to graduate with a Masters in Journalism there in 1927. When Wirt Benson respectfully declined a pay cut, the Syndicate hired Walter Karig to take up the reins. Karig wrote books eight, nine, and 10, and then the Syndicate had Wirt Benson back for books 11 to 25. After another gap in which the books were written by a number of writers, she was asked to write book thirty, and though she was not formally fired as a ghostwriter, she was not asked to write another Nancy Drew after that point.

It is easy to get caught up in the lore of Nancy Drew and the history of her creators, and if the number of times I have info dumped on my husband about this, my special interest, is any indicator, I could go on for days, or at least until my caffeine buzz wears off. But this is a post about Wirt Benson and she also wrote many successful children’s books, 135 in all. She got her start with the Syndicate with the 1927 book Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario. Stratemeyer tried Wirt Benson out, as it were, with the well established Ruth Fielding series, and he had her in mind when he pitched the Nancy Drew series to Grosset and Dunlap. At the same time as she was writing the Nancy Drew books, she was also writing Ruth Fielding, Dana Girls, and Honey Bunch books. In the late 1940s, her husband, Asa Wirt*, had a stroke and became ill, suffering a number of debilitating strokes. Meanwhile, Wirt Benson was also caring for their young daughter, Peggy, and working as a reporter. On top of that she had pseudonyms of her own, which is where, in my opinion, she did some of her best writing. 

Wirt Benson’s favourite series was the Penny Parker Mystery Stories, and I can see why. Penny is everything I believe Nancy Drew could have been if Wirt Benson had been in complete control of the writing of these books. Penny, the daughter of a newspaper man, often writes articles for her father’s paper. She is an enthusiastic and casual girl who doesn’t take anything too seriously, even when her investigating pitches her into the most dire of circumstances. The more I learn about Wirt Benson, the more I see her in the strong women she wrote. The first book Penny Parker book, Tale of the Witch Doll (1939), begins with Penny doing an expert high-dive. Like the character she created, Wirt Benson was a lauded diver in her youth. As well as being on the competitive swim team at her university, where she took part in relays and diving, she also played on the basketball team, the soccer team, wrote for the school paper, the Daily Iowan. In high school she played baseball, basketball, volleyball, acted in the senior class play, played the xylophone, and outside of school she played the slide trombone in the Ladora Band.

After being enthralled by flying in her youth, in 1964, when she was 59 years old, she got her pilot’s licence. It’s no wonder she wrote young women like Nancy Drew and Ruth Darrow who also flew planes. Suddenly all of her extremely talented heroines don’t seem so far fetched. I have often thought while reading a Nancy Drew, “is there nothing this woman can’t do?” and now I am much more inclined to believe a real live person can be as adventurous, talented, and well rounded as Nancy.  

Wirt Benson was talented and clearly had many interests, but writing was her number one objective from an early age. “I always wanted to be a writer from the time I could walk. I had no other thought except that I wanted to write.” She learned to read very early and was soon reading everything she could get her hands on. Her own town of Ladora was too small to have a library, but when possible her father would drop her off at the public library in a nearby town, and there she would spend eight hours at a time reading. 

“Writing is a way of life for me,” she said. “It’s like getting up and having breakfast.” She wrote for the Daily Iowan during university, and after graduating she wrote for the Clinton Iowa Herald, in 1944 she started working at the Toledo Blade, when it was the Toledo Times, working there for the next 58 years. On the afternoon of 28 May 2002, she filed what would be her last story. Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, Millie, as she liked to be called, died around 8 p.m. that evening in hospital. She was 96 years old.

Through writing this I have realised that when I picture Wirt Benson, she is impossibly high above the water, mid-dive, or donning her flying cap, about to take flight. As a little girl, I wanted to be like Nancy Drew when grew up. Now, I aspire to be like Millie. 

Happy Birthday Millie.

I want to thank my dear friend Gina (@babsbelovedbooks), without whom my Mildred A. Wirt Benson collection would be almost non-existent. Thanks also to my husband for buying me my first proper vintage Nancy Drew book, and spending way too much money on the Dana Girls edition of my dreams one wedding anniversary.

Many thanks to the literary historians, librarians, journalists, and collectors who have made so much information about dear Millie available. It turns out fans of Nancy Drew make pretty great detectives.

List of references:

“Blade columnist, Nancy Drew author Millie Benson dies at age 96”: Mark Zaborney and George J. Tanber, Toledo Blade, May 29, 2002. 

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (2005) by Melanie Rehak 

“It’s no mystery why Nancy Drew author still writes: ‘It’s a way of life’”: John Seewer, The Associated Press, January 1, 2002.

Nancy Drew Sleuth website run by Jennifer Fisher

Series Books for Girls website run by Jennifer White

University of Iowa archives, Mildred Wirt Benson Collection

There is a lot of misinformation around Nancy Drew and Mildred A. Wirt Benson out there, I sincerely hope none has crept in here. If there are any inaccuracies they are my own and not the fault of the listed sources.

*Asa Wirt died in 1947. In 1959 she married, George Benson.

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56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Whispering Statue - Part 2/2

Book 14

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

This discussion of The Whispering Statue is in two parts. You can find a link to Part One, here, where we discuss the plot of both the original text (OT) and revised text (RT). 

Now, let's pick up where we left off...

Bonkersness 

There is one bonkers scene in the RT… Okay. There are a few scenes that are fairly bonkers, but one that goes well beyond my suspension of disbelief… Nancy, Bess, and George are snooping in the storeroom of a shop when they hear someone coming.

    Instantly the young detective made a decision.

    Grabbing Bess and George by their arms, she pointed toward the empty portrait frames.

    "Pose!" Nancy whispered.

    The three girls stepped through the frames against the canvas. Each one kneeled and took a different pose. They assumed profile positions so they could not be identified easily if the intruder should happen to know them.

[…]

    The man began looking around and mumbling to himself. 

[…]

    In his search the newcomer suddenly lurched into Bess's frame. It fell over, striking Bess who also went down. Instantly the intruder realized that the person in the frame was alive!

    "Oh!" cried Bess.

    The man gave a deep grunt, then yanked Bess up from the floor. At the same instant Nancy and George leaped from their frames! (RT 110-112)

The girls quickly overpower him because he was "taken completely by surprise" (RT 113). Good thing all baddies in Nancy Drew books are incredibly dim-witted and unobservant. The crazy thing is, the girls almost get away with their disguise! 

As you may notice from the photo to follow, the illustration that goes along with the scene doesn’t do the writing any favours. From where the man in standing in the doorway he would see right down the back of the frames. The girls shouldn’t stand a chance in their silly efforts of disguise! As I said all baddies in these books are very dim, but what does it say about Nancy and her friends that they think pretending to be two dimensional objects would actually work? There are times in the RT Nancy Drews when Nancy seems to be closer to eight than eighteen. Although, I feel I’m doing a disservice to the intelligence of eight-year-olds in saying that! 

More dramatic and more believable?

The OT of this one is so over the top. But, somehow, it works! While it’s much more dramatic than the RT and some crazy things happen in this book, it stops just shy of being completely unbelievable. I think that’s why I’m enjoying the OT Nancy Drew books so much. Nancy has more of a devil-may-care attitude than in the RT, which makes for exciting reading. When this Nancy gets into a pickle I feel a lot less frustrated with her than I do when I’m reading an RT. In her efforts to help others and solve the mystery, the OT Nancy often rushes headlong into trouble and her nutty ideas of getting out of it seem just desperate enough to be believable, like this scene where she has just escaped a house where she has been kept captive and with the help of a sheet attempts to pass herself off as a statue.

    She wondered how much longer the storm would hold off. The tall trees near the place were waving wildly in the wind, and at any moment a limb might snap off and come crashing down. The site was a most dangerous one.

    Nancy stood hesitating an instant; then, with the wind tearing at her garments, she crossed the garden toward the Whispering Girl statue.

    Where three figures previously had stood, but two now remained.

[…]

    Nancy scarcely had time to hide. Wrapping the sheet tightly about her, she stepped up to the empty pedestal to become a living statue in the Whispering Girl group.

[…]

    With head bent low, Joe Mitza stumbled through the garden. He was muttering to himself, saying over and over that he had learned his lesson, and that never again would he be dishonest.

    Nancy had intended to frighten the fellow with another whispered warning. However, observing his nervous condition, she overcame the temptation and remained silent. The fellow cast a frightened glance at the Whispering Girl statue as he hastened by and went on down the road. (OT 196-199)

The scene in the RT where the three girls hide in frames is reminiscent of this one. There are a few reasons why I think this scene works where the other one fails: Nancy is pretending to be a statue and not a painting, she is outdoor at night as opposed to indoors in full daylight, and the baddie she is trying to fool is truly upset and distracted from some life-changing news he has just heard, while the baddie in the RT is just busy casing the joint. The other reason this scene from the OT works while the scene from the RT fails is because of the writing. 

Some of the writing in the RT Nancy Drews is shockingly bad. The plots have all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop and the dialogue is just plain moronic most of the time. But for me, the aspect that really suffers in this RT is the descriptions of settings. In the OT description is used to create atmospheric scenes where anything could happen. While in the RT they virtually skipped descriptions and setups to scenes and substitute them with liberally placed exclamation points. Take, for instance, the scene from the OT when Nancy visits Old Estate for the first time and sees “The Whispering Girl”.

    An ancient gate still barred the entrance to the winding private road which led to the house. As the young man pulled it open so that they might drive through, a loose board fell to the ground, making it impossible to close the barrier again. The road was dry but rutty, and a wild jungle of shrubs brushed against the car as it passed.

[…]

    The automobile rounded a bend and halted before a weather-beaten, rambling old house which was perched high above the sea. It stood at a rakish angle since one wing had no form of support at all. The water had cut a great tunnel beneath it.

    "Another season, and the house surely will topple into the sea," Jack declared, gazing about him with interest. "A lot of damage has been done since last I visited here."

    Toward the right lay what remained of a garden. There were a few scraggly rose bushes entangled among a jungle of weeds. Yet when the visitors came within view of the Whispering Girl statue, they halted and stared in awe, for the figure tended to dignify its unkempt surroundings.

    The marble piece was still imposing, though weatherbeaten and old. The group consisted of three sculptured figures; a life-sized likeness of a beautiful girl with flowing hair, on either side of which, at a little distance, stood a smaller statue. The central figure bore a startling resemblance to Nancy. (OT 68-69)

Even in daylight there is a feeling of foreboding as they approach the estate. This is a place in transition with a house that is teetering on the cliff edge, on the brink of being taken by the sea. Time is running out. If the daughter of the deceased owner isn’t found and brought to claim the property for her own soon, the house, and even the statue will be lost.

There isn’t a scene or setting in the RT to directly compare this to. I found aspects of this scene in three separate settings in the RT: the rutted drive of a derelict mansion the girls are brought to in a foiled kidnapping attempt, the statue at night outside of the yacht club where the girls are staying, and the overgrown garden at a property being used as an artist’s studio.

    The highway ran directly to the oceanfront. Here the driver turned left and drove for some distance. The area was uninhabited and the roads were heavy with sand. After a while the car went up a weed-choked driveway toward a large weather-beaten house. On the ocean side of it, sand dunes ran down to the water’s edge. (RT 24)

    The marble figure cast a broad shadow. There was something eerie about the scene with the beautiful young woman looking longingly in the direction of her Italian homeland. (RT 81)

    The front yard was filled with terra-cotta statues which stood amid high grass. Here and there a rosebud reared its head above an overgrown flower bed, and a few hollyhocks towered above the weeds. (RT 121)

In all of these scenes the bit of tension that is created is destroyed by a quick reassurance of safety. In the first scene the girls hop out of the car and outrun the men who are “past middle-age, heavy, and not so agile” (RT 26) then they double back and steal their car to drive to a phone to call the police (27). In the second, Nancy and Ned, who have been at a dance being held at the yacht club, go outside to see the statue. They think they hear the statue whispering, but shortly discover the voices are coming from a couple sitting behind the statue, the man proposing (81, 82). In the last instance, the girls talk to the artist, look at the statues on display, see someone coming and they scoot next door to have dinner at a “farmhouse [that] had been converted into a charming, old-fashioned dining room” (126).

To a certain extent the tension is softened in the OT, but not enough to clear the atmosphere. In the scene above when Nancy and her friends first see the statue, Bess comments that Mrs. Owen was right, Nancy could be its twin. Nancy’s response, “It makes me feel sort of creepy to see myself reflected in marble” (69). Moments later, Nancy asks everyone to listen.

    Everyone remained quiet for a moment. Save for the whistle of the wind in the pine boughs and the roar of the ocean, there was no other sound.

    “One can almost imagine that the statue is whispering now,” Nancy murmured.

    “It’s only the wind,” George Fayne said impatiently. 

    “Of course,” Nancy returned quickly, “and I hope you won’t think me superstitious, but I find the illusion almost perfect.” (OT 70)

George brings Nancy back down to earth, and while Nancy makes light of her flight of fancy, this only enhances the earlier tension. If logical-minded Nancy Drew is getting affected by the scene we know there is something about the derelict estate that is unsettling.

In conclusion

My plan was not to pick apart the RT, because I thought it was quite good, not great. But it didn’t put me to sleep or cause me to roll my eyes on every other page like the RT of The Mystery of the Hollow Oak did either. Even so, the RT of The Whispering Statue doesn’t compare to the quality of writing in the OT. My intention isn’t to pit the writers of these two editions against each other. Harriet Stratemeyer Adams writes simple sentences. Perhaps, it was thought that was all the children of the day were able to understand. Mildred A. Wirt manages to write a more sophisticated book without elevating the vocabulary to any great extent, rather, she varies it more, and her sentence structure is more complex.

As with many children’s books, both of these books have moments were one has to suspend their disbelief. However, these moments were a little harder to swallow in the RT. I found the incidents that were most unbelievable also made Nancy and her friends appear unintelligent. Nancy cannot be both a skilled detective and believe that hiding behind a frame will make her look like a painting. The two are mutually exclusive. 

The one problem I had with the OT was that I felt it was a bit slow to start. A lot was made of the dog, Togo, getting into trouble and taking Nancy along with him for the ride. He did enable Nancy to meet a character who becomes more important later, but Togo is all but forgotten once the group reaches Sea Cliff. Nancy leaves him at the hotel kennel and a few days go by before there is any mention of him at all. After that Togo isn’t mentioned again until the very end of the book, where he still doesn’t have any connection to the main plot. I am fairly sure Togo doesn’t feature in any of the other books in this series, but I will be on the lookout! (Through a bit of research online, I have discovered that Togo does appear in a number of the books in the Nancy Drew Diaries series. Although, I cannot directly attest to this, as I have not read any of the books in that series.)

Next up is book 15 in the series, The Haunted Bridge. See you in July!

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Whispering Statue - Part 1/2

Book 14

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

I should add that this discussion of The Whispering Statue is in two parts. Part Two will go up tomorrow. Once it goes live, you will be able to find a link to it here.

Editions pictured: OT (25 chapters, 217 pages); RT (20 chapters, 179 pages)

OT publication date: 1937

My OT edition printed: approx. 1959-1961

RT publication date: 1970

My RT edition printed: approx. 1974

RT cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

OT setting: River Heights & Sea Cliff (summer resort on Atlantic Coast)

RT setting: River Heights & Waterford (town on the coast)

Introduction

Since I have both books in my collection, I had the pleasure of reading the original text (OT) of The Whispering Statue and the revised text (RT). On the other occasion (The Message in the Hollow Oak OT, The Message in the Hollow Oak RT) where I had both editions I discussed each book in its own post. The RT diverged from the OT to such an extent that it would have been near impossible to compare them. While the OT and the RT of The Whispering Statue are quite different from each other, I believe they have enough in common that they can be discussed together. That’s my hope, anyway!

On the other occurrence when I had both the OT and the RT of a title, I read the OT first. But after reading the more sophisticated and — let’s just say it — better written OT, the RT was a slog to get through. I vowed not to make the same mistake a second time around, so when it came time to read The Whispering Statue I picked up the RT first. And you know what? It had the desired results! I had a fun time reading both books. Sure the OT was still better, as I expected it would be, but I didn’t have to force myself to finish the RT and I was able to appreciate that one for what it was without constantly comparing it to the OT. I believe this enabled me to look at both of these books more objectively and better appreciate their strengths without letting the weak points cast a dark cloud over my enjoyment of them!

The other thing I didn’t do this time is take notes while I was reading. This enabled me to get into these stories without all of the stopping and starting that detailed note taking entails. The one downside is that I didn’t have anything to refer back to after I had finished reading, which made this blog post a whole lot harder to write! If you have read any of my Nancy Drew posts before, you know that I usually start them off with a list of the shenanigans Nancy and her friends get up to, followed by how many meals were eaten, and any other interesting details. However, my not having taken notes while I was reading means I don’t have any of that information available to me. I hope you will forgive me for the unusually straightforward synopses to follow. 

RT Synopsis

Mrs. Merriam, a client of Nancy’s father, inherits a large collection of fine books from her uncle. She approaches Willis Basswood, the owner of an art gallery and bookshop in her town, and he agrees to sell the books for her, taking a fee of twenty-five percent from each sale. Some of the books sell for quite a bit of money and others for less as is to be expected. All is well, until Mr. Basswood stopped paying Mrs. Merriam. He explained it was because the books weren’t selling, but Mrs. Merriam suspects the man is selling the books and simply not paying her.

While Mrs. Merriam explains her problem to Nancy, masked men ambush the Drew home, and Nancy gets a threatening phone call with the message, “You tell Mrs. Merriam to shut up or she’ll get hurt and you people too!” (RT 4).

Soon Nancy is taking an assumed name and traveling in disguise to Waterford with friends Bess and George in tow. There they stay at the Waterford Yacht Club where there is another mystery surrounding a missing statue which is said to whisper and bears a distinct resemblance to none other than Nancy Drew.

The mysteries are linked — well, aren’t they always?! — and Nancy brings the baddies to justice with a lot of help from her friends. At one point she is entrapped in a sarcophagus and things would have quickly gone downhill if it wasn’t for the quick actions of Bess, George, Ned, and their new friend Dick.

OT Synopsis

Nancy goes to the opening ceremony of a new park in River Heights, where a lost bull-terrier adopts her, dragging Nancy into all sorts of trouble. The dog, soon to be named Togo, digs up freshly planted flower beds, chases a bevy of swans, and darts wildly at children. He takes a mislaid handbag, plunges into a lake, swims out a ways, and drops it in before paddling back to shore.

Through Togo’s excitable nature — see handbag incident above — Nancy meets Mrs. Owen, the honoured guest speaker of the event, and hears about a statue called “The Whispering Girl” that looks remarkably akin to Nancy, which just happens to be on display near Sea Cliff, a place she will soon be going on holiday. While the two are airing out the woman’s belongings — see Togo’s excitable nature above — Nancy happens to see in the woman’s possession a personal ad clipped from the newspaper. After some consideration, Nancy suspects Mrs. Owen of having a secret sorrow. 

Nancy, Bess, and George go on holiday to Sea Cliff resort. On the train, they see a shady individual preying on an older woman. Nancy warns the woman to be careful of the man, but the woman gives Nancy short shrift for her efforts. Later Nancy suspects the woman isn’t as soft a touch as she seems. There’s a mystery there!

In this one, Nancy and her friends save two men from a burning plane, reunite a man and wife, and stop some thieves from stealing a number of expensive sculptures. Nancy also finds the missing heiress of a crumbling estate, saves an elderly woman from a watery grave, and is rescued during a terrific storm from a most unseaworthy vessel.

Going forward

When I first set out to read one Nancy Drew and write a blog post per week I had no idea how time consuming it would be. It vaguely crossed my mind that for the titles I had both editions in I would then have to read both in one week, but I had so few in the OT that I didn’t think it would matter much. What I didn’t think about at all is my mood. The truth is, as much as I love Nancy Drew, there are a lot of other books that I want to be reading. Besides, there are a lot of other things I want to have time for outside of reading and writing about what I read. As the gaps have grown between posts has proven, a weekly turnaround simply isn’t attainable for me. 

In July and August I will be discussing one Nancy Drew title per month and then starting in September I plan to do two titles per month. Hopefully, this will free me up to do non-Nancy posts if the urge takes me. More importantly, I hope this will rekindle my excitement for this project. It’s hard to get enjoyment out of the process when you can practically hear the clock ticking! I hope you can all understand and aren’t secretly cursing me. 

Fingers crossed I’ll have more time to fine-tune my thoughts, and make my blog posts are little more succinct, so I can stop producing posts that grow so large that they need to be cut in half!

See you tomorrow where we will be talking about bonkersness, good writing, better writing, and the best way to disguise yourself as a work of art. I hope to see you then.

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Mystery of the Ivory Charm

Week 18, Book 13 

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 179 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1974

Original text publication date: 1936

My edition printed: approx. 1978

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Priscilla Baker-Carr

Setting: River Heights and local towns, Tannberg and Hanover

Originally published in 1936, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of The Mystery of the Ivory Charm, published in 1974 and pictured above. 

Carson Drew’s friend, Stanley Strong, needs someone to look into possible illegal activity going on at the wild animal show he owns and, of course, Nancy Drew is the one for the job (1)!

With friends Bess and George, and 5-year-old Tommy from down the street in tow, Nancy attends the wild animal show. There they come across a runaway elephant and have a run-in with a cruel animal trainer, Rai, who threatens to whip his son, Rishi, for not looking after the elephant. Nancy notices the man wears a beautiful ivory charm in the shape of an elephant on a cord around his neck. When she asks him about it, he tells her that the person who wears it is protected from harm (9). 

Afterwards, Mr. Strong tells Nancy he is suspicious of Rai. Beyond mistreating his son, Mr. Strong doesn’t know what Rai might be up to, but he would like Nancy to investigate the man (10-11). When Nancy arrives home from the excursion, she discovers a stowaway (12). Rishi has run away from Rai, who is not his real father. Before Rai’s wife died, she told Rishi that his real father is alive and living in River Heights (14). 

In this one, Nancy finds Rishi’s father, uncovers the power of the ivory charm, and restores a stolen fortune to a maharaja. She still has time to temporarily adopt a child (19), search for property (34-36), provide first aid (57-58), find an English tutor (63-64), have a long conversation about mysticism (73-76), help Hannah make breakfast (83), read the newspaper… or at least the headlines (84), dig herself out of a collapsed tunnel (92), go to a “wild-animal show”… twice (3-11, 100-106), go to the market (109), go to Emerson for the weekend for a fraternity party (134-138), pretend she has psychic powers (144-147), use her first aid skills a second time (148-149), jump to conclusions with little proof twice in one chapters and prove to be right both times (157, 159-160), save someone from drowning (162-163), provide yet more first aid (that course sure is coming in handy!) (175-176), eat six meals (which has got to be a record for the lowest number of meals mentioned in any Nancy Drew book!), and have a snack of tea and cake.

Time of year

    [Carson Drew’s] slender, attractive daughter walked toward the car. It was a sunny, warm May afternoon. Nancy’s strawberry-blond hair vividly contrasted her teal-blue convertible. (2)

In this one, there isn’t much mention of the weather,  the temperature, or even what Nancy is wearing. By setting the book in May, I assume the idea was to give Nancy good weather in which to solve the mystery, with the added benefit that Ned is still in university, so Nancy can take a weekend off of sleuthing to visit him. Of course, it doesn’t exactly work out that way, but Ned can keep on hoping!

There is one mention of the weather, a thunderstorm, which gives Nancy and her friends the opportunity to explore a house that has had the insides removed.

    “Rain hard outside,” Rishi said.

    “Then we’ll stay here until the storm’s over,” Nancy suggested.

    Rishi began to test the ropes and swings. Bess uttered a little cry of alarm as the boy swung through space, hanging by his knees from he bar of a trapeze. 

    “He’ll be killed!” she exclaimed.

    Nancy warned him to be careful. “The safety net is broken,” she cautioned. “And some of the ropes look very old and insecure.”

    “Rishi not take chance,” he promised.

    Outside the old house rain fell in torrents.

    “While we’re waiting I believe I’ll do a little investigating,” Nancy said. (50)

The house “without insides” and other nonsense

    An amazing sight met their gaze. The house was indeed “without insides.” The floor had been torn away. From the rafters of the ceiling hung several swings and trapezes, similar to these used in wild-animal acts, as well as many entangled ropes. (49)

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a house without insides when I read this book as a child, and I find it even more confusing now. Would it not make more sense to use a building that is already an open space, such as a barn, for the purpose of training animals or practicing a trapeze act?

Stranger still, one of the characters in this book lives in a barn. It is commented on as evidence of him being eccentric. Okay, fine. But clearly, there is no shortage of barns in the area. 

    “You won’t find Pete living in a regular house, though—not that guy. He’s too stingy to build himself a decent place. He lives in an old barn that was standing on the property when he bought it.”

[…]

    “This must be the place,” Nancy commented, stopping the car near a strange structure, which resembled neither a house nor a barn.

    The queer, tumble-down building had originally been painted brick red, but now appeared to be washed-out pink. A porch had been build at the front, and large windows were cut into the walls at uneven angles. An old silo, long since useless, adjoined the east side of the structure, while the west side was supported by a massive stone chimney.

    “Did you ever see such a crazy-looking house?” Bess giggled. “I wish I had a camera with me.” (115-116)

But the architecture in this book is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that make no sense. Given the title and the fact this is a children’s book that was repackaged in the 1970s, we can anticipate some racist stereotypes with this one and this is definitely the case. The racism in this book could probably be called “casual”, which is so easy to gloss over as just being of its time. 

Rishi, the Indian boy that Nancy meets at the wild animal show and who stows away in her car, refers to himself in the third person throughout the book despite Nancy having found him a professor to tutor him in English who comments on Rishi being unusually bright for a 12-year-old. I have never heard anyone who’s first language wasn’t English refer to themselves in the third person! All I can say is that is seems a lazy and insensitive way of handling Rishi’s dialogue. Thankfully, there are three other characters from India in this book and neither the author, editor, or publisher felt the need to impose any unusual speech characteristics on any of them!

Final thoughts 

Judging by the fact that all I’ve done is complain about this book, I’m sure you’ve already guessed that I didn’t enjoy this one very much. After reading the The Message in the Hollow Oak in the original text a few weeks ago and really enjoying the more adventurous and free-spirited version of Nancy in that book, I’m a bit worried that I’ve ruined myself for the revised texts. Although, I don’t remember particularly liking this one as a child either. I would have liked to have more scenes at the “wild-animal show” — which sounds to me a lot like a circus — and less time spent going to fraternity parties, and visiting the house “without insides”. Beyond the tunnel that leads from the house to a door that looks like it is part of a rock, the setting felt lacklustre. I don’t think the tunnel is ever property explained. The house “without insides” is explained as once being “the headquarters for a circus troupe” long before the current owner came into possession of the property (163). You know, just one of those odd coincidences!

Bonkers quotation

I have got into the habit of finishing these posts off with a favourite quotation from the book, but since I appear to only be ragging on this one — and I didn’t mark a single passage that I liked — I thought I might as well share this very strange section that made me wonder who this imposter is who is trying to pass herself off as Nancy Drew.

    Rishi bubbled with enthusiasm and his gaiety was imparted to the others. He loved the outdoors and amazed the girls with his stories of country life in his native land.

    He asked eager questions about the names of unfamiliar trees and birds he saw in the area. The girls were slightly embarrassed when they could not always answer him, and they resolved to devote themselves to nature lore with new interest.

    “I’m ashamed that I don’t know the names of half the birds I see,” Nancy confessed. “I’ll find out.” (34)

I found this very odd. In the Password to Larkspur Lane, Nancy shows herself to be knowledgeable about flowers, and she has some knowledge of birds too, as she nurses a homing pigeon back to health in that one. How are we supposed to believe that she can’t name the birds they see on the short drive in the countryside near her house? I’m all for a version of Nancy who is willing to admit when she doesn’t know something, and who is eager to learn more to fill in the gaps in her knowledge, but I would also like to see some consistency in Nancy across the books! 

Here’s hoping I have better luck with The Whispering Statue. This is another title where I have both the original and revised text versions in my collection. This time I plan to start with the revised text, in an effort to learn from the mistake I made reading the original text of The Message in the Hollow Oak and noticing all of the places where the revised text failed to live up to the original. Wish me luck!

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Message in the Hollow Oak - Part 2/2

Week 16, Book 12

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post. This is Part Two in a two part discussion. You can find Part One here.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 181 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1972

Original text publication date: 1935

My edition printed: 1990 or later

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Grace Grote (In this case, the term “revised” is used loosely. This is a completely different book from the OT written by Wirt Benson.)

Setting: River Heights; New York City; St. Louis, Missouri; countryside near Cairo, Illinois

Originally published in 1935, I will be reviewing the revised text (RT) edition of The Message in the Hollow Oak, published in 1972 and pictured above. 

Nancy’s Aunt Eloise invites Nancy to New York. A detective friend of hers, Boyce Osborne a.k.a. Boycey, needs Nancy’s help on a baffling case (1-2). Upon arrival at Aunt Eloise’s “apartment house”, Nancy gets stuck in the elevator (4). When she finally gets out, Boycey tells Nancy all about the message in the hollow oak that him and his detective buddies were trying to find while they were on holiday. The message was supposed to be left by a French-Canadian missionary travelling through Illinois in the late 1600s (8-9). The one catch is a man called Kit Kadle wants to find the message first (10).

Boycey suggests that when Nancy gets to Illinois she could stay with the girls at the archeological dig that is going on in the area (13). Ned’s cousin, Julie Anne, just happens to be joining the dig, so the two girls agree to meet up in St. Louis (16-17). After Bess and George leave her at the airport, Nancy gets the feeling that a man is watching her (17). Unfortunately, he boards the same plane as Nancy and sits next to her, then proceeds to ask her increasingly personal questions about the reason for her trip (18-19). Nancy lands in St. Louis, meets up with Julie Anne who tells her all about the dig and Nancy in turn tells the other girl about the hollow oak (21-23). 

After a helicopter ride, the two girls arrive at the site of the dig. The students welcome Nancy with open arms, as does the dig leader, Teresa Bancroft (28-30). (I assumed Teresa was meant to be an archeologist as she has a group of university students from a class she teaches, but, annoyingly, she is only referred to as a “dig leader” throughout the book.) Her first night there, her sleep is disturbed by a strange voice calling her name (30). From then on, things just get weirder, not to mention more dangerous around the dig and throughout Nancy’s search for a specific hollow oak, of which there are many. Apparently, the Illinois countryside is positively riddled with the things!

In this one, Nancy — you guessed it — finds the message in the hollow oak. Even with multiple plane rides, helicopter trips, and a lot of traipsing around the countryside in dubious vehicles, Nancy still has time to get stuck in an elevator (4), extricate an barnyard intruder from her bedroom (32), attend a religious service (32), acquire a “good-luck coin” (40-41), spend days not looking for the hollow oak, chase more intruders, human this time (54), spend way, way too much time worrying that her new friend Art is jealous of Ned, go on a multi-day towboat tour with new friends and old (92-121), take countless motorcycle rides into town, help out on an archeological dig (50-51), show off her French translation skills (175-176), eat 21 meals, three snacks, including an odd combination of doughnuts and apples, kindly provided by a marshal’s deputy. 

Time of year

While Nancy is away in Illinois, she calls her father who relays the message that Ned Nickerson is very eager to get in contact with her. She tries three numbers, hoping to find him, but is unsuccessful.

    “Nancy sat in the phone booth another half a minute thinking of the tall, good-looking young man. Right now he was working on a summer job, selling insurance.” (58)

Ned attends Emerson College during the school year, so we can assume that this book is set somewhere between May and early September.

Timeline

Starting on a Friday and ending on a Thursday, this book is set over 21 days, making it one of the more spread out timelines of these books, and it feels it. Nancy spends a lot of days not investigating, which instead of creating tension and anticipation that Kit Kadle might find the message in the hollow oak first, it made me lose interest in the story.

The original text is better

Before reading this one, I had planned on following my usual format for these posts. However, having read the original text (OT) edition for this title first, I ruined all possibly of enjoying this book. My logic was the same that I apply to films, when I have the option available, I watch the original before the remake. Of course, that can backfire, as the original is usually better. Perhaps the one exception is the 1995 remake of Sabrina with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford. The 1954 original, despite having the ever charming Audrey Hepburn in the staring role, falls flat in comparison. Humphrey Bogart playing the love interest of someone who looks almost young enough to be his granddaughter may have had something to do with it. And heaven help me, what kind of love story ends with the music swelling to the couple hugging? If you can’t kiss then, when are you going to kiss?! 

Sorry! I can hear what you’re thinking. “When did this become a film review?” You’re quite right. Back to The Message in the Hollow Oak…

But first, can I just say, this is a prime example of why it has taken me so long to post about this one. I have become a master at avoiding this book. I’d pick it up. Read a few pages. Land on yet another insane scenario. And not exciting insane. At its best, this book was stupid insane, which was frustrating, but at least it helped to keep me awake. Mostly, this book was insanely boring. When I wasn’t taking trips to the kitchen for unnecessary snacks, I was falling asleep part way through a chapter. Now, you have some idea of why this book took me a whopping 11 days to read, when I usually read these books over 1-3 evenings and that’s with taking copious notes. 

My schedule for keeping to one title a week has well and truly gone out the window. Not that I wasn’t a little behind schedule before! I thought I was two weeks behind in posting Part Two of The Message in the Hollow Oak, but I went back to check and over the course of the past 12 titles I've managed to get myself four weeks behind. Let's see if I can get myself caught up!

Now, if you love the RT, this is not a critique on your taste. If I hadn’t read the OT first I might not have so strongly taken against this one. It certainly has me rethinking my theory that I should read the OT first going forward!

For now, I thought I would end with some of the notes I made to myself while reading this one. I wrote these not planning to share them with anyone, so umm, I think I was trying to entertain myself a bit as this book slowly drove me mad. I write notes on the plot as I read these books, and I note now thoughts in ALL CAPS, so they stand out. I've kept my thoughts in this format, as I really did feel like I was yelling at this book as I read. 

I hope you brought your appetite because this book is about to be roasted…

OT Nancy survives a train wreck on the way to the Canadian wilderness, which puts the responsible adult she’s travelling with in the hospital. She handles the situation head on and helps the injured after the wreck. Meanwhile, RT Nancy needs constant comforting from her aunt and the detective friend while stuck in an elevator. — YES, LET’S COMPLETELY STRIP NANCY OF BRAVERY AND COMPETENCY FROM THE OFF.

After finding one hollow oak with a plaque on it, the farmer that is driving Nancy around says he has to go home and won’t be able to drive her again for another THREE DAYS and Julie Anne tells Nancy she probably wouldn’t have been able to get permission to shirk her duties on the dig to help Nancy, anyway (16). — THIS HAS ALL THE SUBTLETY OF A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP. WHY CAN’T NANCY DRIVE HERSELF? OT NANCY GETS INTO A HIGH SPEED CHASE THROUGH THE STREET OF RIVER HEIGHTS TO BRING DOWN A THIEF, BUT RT NANCY CAN'T DRIVE AROUND THE ILLINOIS COUNTRYSIDE?

In the evening the boy student clean the artifacts found on the site while the girls make a “wholesome meal” (44). — GIVE ME A BREAK

Nancy finds a “crudely printed note” left for her. “Nancy took out her magnifying glass and examined the note for fingerprints. There were none on it.” (72) — LOL WHAT WAS NANCY EXPECTING? FOR THE PERSON WHO HAD LEFT IT TO HAVE DIPPED THEIR FINGERS IN INK???

“Holding her hands binocular-fashion around her eyes, Nancy focused not he opposite bank and tried to detect possible footprints. She could see none.” (82) — PROBABLY BECAUSE HOLDING YOUR HANDS LIKE THEY ARE BINOCULARS DOES NOT MAGICALLY TURN THEM INTO BINOCULARS!!! (Note: Nancy is 18 in the RT books, not 5 years old, like one might assume from this scene.) 

More about Nancy thinking Art is jealous of Ned (84). — I FEEL LIKE I’M READING A SWEET VALLEY HIGH

Nancy suggested that they take a taxi to the airfield and meet Ned and the others. During the ride Art did not say a word. When they reached the field he walked off by himself.

    "What's eating him?" Julie Anne asked.

    "Competition," Nancy replied. "Julie Anne, I think you'll have to cheer up poor Art." 

    The girl beamed. "Do you think I ran do it? He's been tagging after you ever since you arrived."

    "Of course you can," Nancy said. "Why don't you start in right now by walking over to him?" 

    Julie Anne liked this idea and set off at once. (93)

 — OH, BROTHER

Art is aloof with Ned (94). Bess notices Art’s attraction to Nancy, then Ned notices it too and now both boys aren’t talking to each other (95). Bess tries to point Art in Julie Anne’s direction and Nancy tells her she wants to encourage him that way too, but they’ll have to take it slow (96). —  AGAIN, AM I READING A SVH???

One night on the towboat, the group has just finished dessert when a log comes through the window. Miraculously, everyone is unhurt except for Dave who has a small cut from the glass. Ever helpful, the boys replace the glass in the window (114). — WHAT, DOES THE TOWBOAT HAVE A SUPPLY OF GLASS ON BOARD FOR WHEN THE WINDOWS GET BLOWN OUT BY ALL THOSE FLOATING LOGS THAT GET PROPELLED ON BOARD??? 

“So much had been going on that the subject of jealousy between him and Ned had been forgotten. Nancy was happy over this and hoped the good relationship would last.” (114) — I'M ROLLING MY EYES. 

Theresa suggests Art lend his motorcycle to Ned so he can drive Nancy into town to make a report to the police. “Nancy was delighted to see that he showed no sign of jealousy.” (139) — OH, BROTHER

More worries about jealousy between Art and Ned (142). — I MEAN, WHY DOES THIS BOOK MAKE NANCY SEEM SO SELF CONSUMED??? 

After being kidnapped, Bob explains how he was able to drop spearheads on the ground as a signal to anyone looking for him. “When the men took me out for exercise, they untied my hands.” (164) — LOL OH, SURE. ALL KIDNAPPERS TAKE THEIR HOSTAGES OUT FOR EXERCISE 

The letter that is found in the hollow oak includes directions to the treasure, in French, which Nancy translates (175-176). — THE ONLY THING THE RT HAS IN COMMON WITH THE OT IS THAT THERE IS A MESSAGE IN A HOLLOW OAK AND NANCY CAN TRANSLATE FRENCH.

The last chapter is followed by a “Postscript”.

    The Hopewell mound was excavated the following summer and found to contain many perfectly preserved artifacts and fossils, including several bird effigies in stone, and a rare baby's cradle. At a luncheon celebration which followed the event, Nancy was praised for having added valuable information to the archaeological knowledge of America.

    With a smile she said, “All the credit belongs to Père François and his message in the hollow oak." (182) 

— NO EXCITING TREASURE AND NANCY DIDN’T EVEN GET TO DIG IT UP HERSELF. HONESTLY, COULD THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN MORE ANTICLIMACTIC???

Final thoughts

I think that about covers it. I hope you had a giggle, or were at the very least mildly amused. If you are planning to read The Message in the Hollow Oak, I recommend sticking with the OT if you can get your hands on a copy. If you must read both, like I felt I did, I would suggest either reading the two versions far apart from each other, or getting the RT out of the way first. 

The Mystery of the Ivory Charm is up next. Here’s hoping I have more success with that one!