Last week’s post pointed you to my latest Brought to Mind column, "Memories on My Shelves." This week, I want to go into a little more detail about some of my favorite vintage “girls series” as I call them.
Since I have never been a huge fan of fantasy, I didn’t have many modern reading options as a teen. Middle-grade and young adult books these days seem very dragon-forward.
Fortunately, I was already interested in old things as a teen, so I started reading the Nancy Drew series and other similar books I found at antique stores. I still keep my eye out for additions to my collection even though I’ve moved on to Christie and Allingham when I want to actually read a mystery. The girls series of the first half of the 20th century are truly amazing. They have charming characters, beautiful covers, and the stories aren’t half bad if we drop some of our modern expectations. Even the things that seem dated are part of the appeal.
I have chosen four series from my collection that I liked best to discuss in this post.
Nancy Drew
This is certainly the most famous on my list. For any girl who likes old books or mysteries, this may well have been the gateway series. Even if you aren’t into those genres, you’ve probably encountered Nancy in some form or fashion. She’s been in many movies, shows, and reboot book series over the years. I’m actually going to include one of those as a bonus series at the end, so stay tuned.
Nancy is an intelligent, independent young woman who zips around River Heights in her blue roadster and around the world on her attorney father’s dime, solving crimes and matching wits with all manner of ill-doers, from cliché to unexpected. In the first few books, her companion is Helen. For most of the series, she is aided by her “chums” Bess and George (who is a girl and actually named that, by the way). The supporting cast is rounded out by her housekeeper/mother figure Hannah, her father Carson, and her boyfriend Ned, a college student with the slightly unusual side hustle of selling insurance.
Nancy is spunky but wholesome and her adventures have great appeal for those of us who enjoy a bit of nostalgia and don’t consider old things automatically too “quaint.” For me, the oldness is part of the experience. I will always remember a line that went something like “she looked ruefully at her pumps stuck in the oozy mud.” When’s the last time anyone’s looked ruefully at their pumps? I also always get a giggle from the vague description of “attractive” applied to most of the characters.
Nancy has a rather storied history. The author, Carolyn Keene, didn’t actually exist. She was a pen name used by a group of several authors. I won’t list them all here. If you want more info on any of these series, I’ll link the source I used at the end of this post.
There were 56 original Nancy Drew books published between 1930 and 1979. Or were there 90? It depends on whether you count the substantially revised editions of the first 34 books published starting in 1959. I’ve never done a comparison, but apparently the books were condensed, updated, and Nancy was made less wild – not that I can imagine her being that wild to begin with. If you’re wondering whether your edition is original, just see if it has 25 chapters. The new editions have 20.
The Dana Girls
For a non-existent person, Carolyn Keene sure keeps busy. This series was also written by a group of various authors. In my research, I’ve discovered that many old series – even ones written under different pseudonyms – have writers in common. If you’re wondering, yes, this does lead to noticeable fluctuations in quality.
I remember liking this series, but I don’t remember as many details about it. Louise and Jean Dana are sisters who attend a boarding school – at least when there are no pressing mysteries to deal with – and were raised by their aunt and uncle. They are about the same age as Nancy Drew, but I remember thinking their adventures were slightly different in tone. You couldn’t just switch characters between series and never know the difference.
The original 30 books of the Dana Girls series were published between 1934 and 1968. Some of the stories were reissued in a different order and a few were added in the 70s.
Vickie Barr
This is the hardest to find on my list, but it’s worth it if you like these kinds of books. The main character – as you may guessed – is Vickie Barr, a young woman who gets her dream job as a flight stewardess (attendant). If you’ve been paying attention, you can probably also guess what comes next: she has a knack for stumbling upon suspicious situations and solving the mystery.
This is a shorter series at just 16 books long. It has two different authors, but they are credited as themselves. The books were published from 1947-1964 and do not appear to have been reissued or revised.
It’s unfortunate that this series is so short and scarce. I remember really enjoying it. It is very different from other mystery series of the time. Vickie isn’t in school or living a life of leisure like some of the other heroines. She has a job. Of course, it’s the kind of job that still allows her to go to exotic locations at the drop of a hat, but realism isn’t a cardinal virtue for most of these series.
Perhaps the real reason I liked these books so much was that there was a time in my life when – despite being afraid of heights, having fair-to-middling at best vision, and having never been on one – I thought it would be really awesome to fly an airplane. Vickie takes lessons on occasion, so that made her exceedingly cool in my eyes. Her adventures also included more than just the whodunnits or Scooby-Doo-ish fake hauntings of Nancy Drew. In one of the books I have, Vickie’s plane is hijacked!
Donna Parker
The last vintage series I want to talk about is a change of pace. It is aimed at younger readers. Nancy and the other girls have all been around 18 or 19. Donna is 14. She’s in 8th and 9th grade in the books, and instead of mysteries, she deals with the various challenges of school, friends, and family. As someone who did not live a fast-paced life in my early teens, I liked that Donna didn’t have steady boyfriends, or endless sporting and social events, or worry about clothes and makeup like so many modern girls seem to at younger and younger ages. That didn’t make her boring or old-fashioned to me, it made her relatable. And, since I was already more interested in her era than my own, I found her stories very appealing.
There are only 7 books in the series and they are not terribly hard to find. They are, however, hard to find in good condition. They were published by Whitman and their binding from that era does not stand the test of time.
Bonus Series:
Nancy Drew: Girl Detective
This was a reboot series that began in 2004. The stories were set in modern times and written in first person from Nancy’s point of view. The mysteries were a bit more serious in tone, but still perfectly appropriate. George and Bess got a bit more character development: George was a techie and Bess was an expert mechanic. Ned was there too, but I can't remember what he was doing. Was he still selling insurance? Or had someone figured out by 2004 that was kind of a weird thing for a college kid to do?
I am usually purist when it comes to series I love. Reboots general fill me with unnamed dread. This series, however, is great. I picked them up whenever I saw them and devoured them. If you have a teen who loves Nancy Drew or mysteries, keep an eye open for these books. Even if she’s never read the original series, she can still enjoy these books as pretty much the only things that stayed the same are character names and relationships.
(FYI, there are many reboot series from different times and for different audiences. I have not read them all, so I can only recommend this specific one.)
Sources:
Series Books for Girls:
An amazingly well researched site with every thing you want to know about many classic teen series
Nancy Drew Sleuth:
A site dedicated to Nancy Drew in her various iterations. Also well researched and informative
I read a few Nancy Drew books when I was growing up, but since most of my books were acquired at the public library, I don't remember them being there. Of course, I usually read way beyond my age, so perhaps just missed them. I've heard of the other series but never read any of them. Hmmm. Maybe I need to check and see if they're on Amazon. Thanks for sharing.