About Nancy and fashion through the decades: war and cinema.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

1960s

The sixties was a period of great social change, which was reflected in all areas of life.

At the beginning of the sixties, Nancy and her friends sported A-line dresses and skirts, crisp cotton blouses, cardigans, and capri pants. By the end of the decade, miniskirts, hot pants, tent dresses, and bellbottoms in wild patterns were the clothing of choice for a good deal of the younger population.

For part of the sixties, the bouffant hairdo was the "in" style. The top of the hair was teased to form a bubble, while the rest fell to the chin or shoulder and curled dramatically up or under. Later in the decade, bobs and Twiggy-style dos became popular.

Music ran the gamut from the Beatles to Motown to electrified rock and roll to folk, and late in the decade lyrics became a vehicle for political expression.

People read books about astrology and horoscopes, and Nancy suspected that many of her cases involved fake hauntings and spirits because the culprits had such ready access to information on the supernatural!

About Nancy and fashion through the decades: war and cinema.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

1950s

For the first time ever, teenagers had their own fashion, their own music, and their own slang. Girls wore formfitting blouses and sweaters, poodle skirts, and saddle shoes or flats. When lounging around the house, they might choose rolled-up dungarees with a blouse and a pretty scarf tied in their hair. Nancy favored the slightly more formal look of a crisp dress with a fitted top, full skirt, and three-quarter sleeves. Hair was either pulled back in a ponytail or worn above the shoulders- and always curled.

Rock and roll hit the scene in the fifties, but in many different forms. Nancy and her pals were fans of the softer sounds of Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, and Babby Darin, while many other teens were drawn to the edgier style of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis, which melded blues and country with rock.

Teen magazines filled with gossip about singers and movie stars were on every newsstand, but Nancy never bought them. She didn't have to: Bess read them cover-to-cover and gave everyone who would listen a full report!

About Nancy and fashion through the decades: war and cinema.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

1940s

Women continued to break boundaries in the forties, especially because of World War II. With most men fighting overseas, women went to work in factories doing jobs that often required mechanical skill. Of course, Nancy had always known how important it was for a woman to know how engines work.

The war affected women's fashion, too. With the rationing of cloth, skirts and jackets got shorter. Sportswear became popular, especially with Nancy, who loved the ease of movement this style provided on sleuthing expeditions. Hair was now worn longer, looser, and curled.

The first televisions appeared late in the decade, and variety shows hosted by Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Red Skelton began to air. Movies were loaded with fraud, murder, and intrigue, as in classics such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Notorious, and Double Indemnity. Nancy saw them all--and had the endings figured out long before the lights came up!

Last few days Her Interactive have posted some information about the future Nancy Drew game and their last video direct hints that we can get something really interesting tomorrow. And we'll tell you everything in order 👀

🗓️ On April, 25 was posted, another puzzle. Clue Crew solved it and got the following message: “Who do you call to find a clue? But your friends old and new. You have no choice, but to warm up your voice. Time to sing for Nancy is 93, then onto our next mystery.”

Well, there also was an additional cypher in the post's description: “nanCy’s bIrthday wEek and sOme festiVe birthday fun!”, that was decrypted as the VOICE word.

🗓️ On April, 26 HeR Interactive Team uploaded a video with Brittany Cox as Nancy Drew voice actress. We previously guessed that she'll come back in the new game, but now it was officially confirmed [otherwise our team could be very sad, because we love how Brittany is voicing Nancy Drew — editor's note]

In the video, Brittany Cox said that she is so exited to be back in the studio recording the newest Nancy Drew mystery game and that this week celebrating 93rd birthday of Nancy Drew character and it's even more special to be recording for a new case. Also, she repeated the puzzle text that this mystery is filled with friends all is new and she'd love to tell us more, but it's “Top Secret.”

How do you think, what we will get tomorrow? We can't describe how our team are inspired by all these news! 😀

The first episode of the Nancy Drew CW final season will be premiered on May 31st! 🎬

We're hoping that Ace and Nancy will finally stop suffering for each other and move on to active actions, not whining 🙄

About Nancy and fashion through the decades: First Appearance.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

Nancy Drew Through the Decades

The original fifty-six Nancy Drew books were published beginning in the 1930s and ending in the 1970s. Though Nancy herself is timeless, the world around her was ever changing.

1930s

With Eleanor Roosevelt leading the way for social reform and Amelia Earhart breaking aviation records, it was clear to Nancy that women could do whatever they set their minds to - including being a teenage sleuth!

Though they were venturing into areas of life previously open only to men, women were still mostly wearing skirts and dresses. They wore bias-cut belted dresses in flowing fabrics such as crepe and satin. Their hair was styled in soft waves close to the head, and they often wore hats tilted daringly to the side.

Nancy and her friends loved listening to the swing music of Benny Goodman & His Orchestra and other big bands. She and her pals knew how to do all the popular dances, such as the lively jitterbug, the Big Apple, and the fox-trot.

The movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were popular, but it comes as no surprise that Nancy was a big fan of films about good guys versus bad guys, such as The Public Enemy starring James Cagney.

When curling up with a good book, Nancy chose Agatha Christie mysteries or Dashiell Hammett detective stories.

On the relevance and reasons for success. We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

Timeless Bestsellers

As much as Nancy changed throughout the decades during which the original fifty-six volumes were written, she always remained an intelligent, confident, and spirited young woman whom young readers could admire. That her adventures are still enjoyed by girls today is a testament to the vision of all those who had a hand in her creation.

Today we will plunge into the history of the creation of the image of Nancy Drew, depicted outside the text.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

Mystery Makeovers

Of course, the illustrators of Nancy Drew also contributed to her image.

Fashion illustrator Russell H. Tandy drew for Butterick sewing patterns and the Sears Roebuck catalog before creating the covers and interior illustrations for the first twenty-six Nancy Drew volumes. His Nancy is glamorous, sophisticated, and adult-looking.

Bill Gillies, a magazine illustrator, portrayed Nancy as more girlish and innocent on his covers for volumes 27-29, and carried that look through on his revisions to covers of earlier volumes.

Rudy Nappi worked on the series the longest, illustrating volumes 30-56, as well as revising a fair amount of art in previous volumes. Nappi's Nancy resembles a typical pert, well-groomed teen of the 1950s or early 1960s.

We continue to get acquainted with the beautiful women standing at the origins of a series of books. Meet Harriet Stratemeyer.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

Putting Nancy into Words

Just weeks after the launch of the Nancy Drew series, Edward Stratemeyer died of pneumonia. Stratemeyer's grown daughters, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Stratemeyer Squier, took over the syndicate, but the financial realities of the Depression eventually forced them to make changes. Some series were dropped and writers' salaries had to be cut. Due to the drop in pay, Mildred Wirt decided not to continue writing for the syndicate, and Harriet and Edna asked Walter Karig, another syndicate writer, to take on the task. He wrote volumes 8-10, but Mildred returned to write volumes 11-25.

Mildred was truly ahead of her time, a "do it all" kind of woman who juggled caring for a daughter and an ailing husband with numerous writing projects and a job outside the home. Mildred loved the character of Nancy, but often didn't see eye to eye with Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer. As time went on, Harriet and Edna became much more involved in the editorial process, providing extremely detailed outlines and heavily editing manuscripts. Harriet had strong opinions regarding Nancy's character, and wanted Mildred to soften the teenager's speech and behavior. Between volumes 26-32, there were quite a few authors who took on the task of writing Nancy Drew, but Harriet wrote volumes 33-56 herself, and later revised all the books from the 1930s and 1940s with help from a few other writers.

The second day of history week we will spend with wonderful ladies. The first of them is Mildred Wirt Benson.

We remind you that in honor of the upcoming birthday of Nancy Drew, we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past of the book series during the week.

From Idea to Reality

In 1929, Stratemeyer wrote to one of his publishers, Grosset & Dunlap, outlining the new girl detective series. The publisher was enthusiastic, and Stratemeyer set about getting the first books produced as quickly as possible. He entrusted the task of bringing Nancy to life to Mildred A. Wirt, a college-educated twenty-four-year-old who had written a few pieces for his syndicate.

Carolyn Keene.Mildred was independent, athletic, and spirited, and had little regard for literature's previous portrayal of young women as passive creatures waiting to be rescued by men. She wanted to reflect the strides that women had recently achieved the right to vote, for example, and give girls a positive role model to aspire to. Her Nancy was ladylike and refined, but also sharp-witted, self-sufficient, and in charge of her own destiny. In April 1930, the first three Nancy Drew books were published under the pen name

On the eve of the birthday of our favorite girl-detective, we decided to plunge into her story.

During this week we will publish short articles and interesting facts from the past.

Let's start from the very beginning!

A man on Vision

Nancy Drew was the brainchild of Edward Stratemeyer, a writer turned businessman who made adventure series for children a publishing phenomenon.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1862, Edward was one of six children of German immigrant Henry Julius Stratemeyer and his wife, Anna. Even as a boy, Edward was an avid reader and writer, and published his own newspaper for boys, The Young American, when he was just fifteen years old. In 1889, he sold his first story, Victor Horton's Idea, to Golden Days for Boys and Girls magazine for seventy-five dollars. His career as a legitimate writer was launched, and over the next several years he turned out an array of adventure stories, many of them series, under many different pen names.

In the early 1900s, Stratemeyer employed a system that enabled him to produce even more series. He developed concepts and detailed outlines for each book, but assigned the actual creation of the manuscripts to ghostwriters. One author's name — concocted by Stratemeyer — appeared on each book in a given series to help establish a "brand" easily recognized by the public. Soon the Stratemeyer Syndicate was creating over thirty series for boys and girls, all with a large and loyal following. In 1927 The Hardy Boys series, about two teenage brothers who solved mysteries, debuted and quickly became a huge success. Stratemeyer set about to create a similar series for girls, and the idea for Nancy Drew was born.

Here the new video about #ND34! This weekend HeR Interactive shown one of the interactives in the game ☕

Remember how many times Nancy ended up behind the counter in the story? To cook sandwiches, then cocktails.

In the new game, Nancy will definitely work as a barista: you can even draw emoticons from foam :)

At the same time, they showed us a little more of the same cafeteria and cryptically added: “you'll never know who nancy will next meet.”

That's all for now. Stay tuned 😉

Today HeR Interactive posted a short video compilation about cooking from various old games, but with an interesting audio sequence — the voice acting of various #ND34 characters. For example, you can hear the phrase like “Gonna play a mix maid for a while, are you?” or “Time to mix it up!”

As the description of the video, HeR Interactive once again left another hidden message: “which nAncy dRew cookIng puzzle do you like To plAy BeSt? 😋” From the uppercase letters you can make the word "BARISTA". This directly indicates that just like in Midnight in Salem we will be able to prepare not herbs, but coffee for visitors to the library cafe.

It can also be noted that Nancy Drew again voices by Brittany Cox, as in the 33rd game.

The Screenshot From The 34th Nancy Drew Game? What?! 👀

This is how our team and other fans of the game react to any news. And now we'll tell you where the screenshot is from.

Today one of Clue Crew — Carter (@thenancydrewtimes) — with the help of other fans (Laura Gabrie and others) has become a bit of a hacker. They decided to look at the web code of the email we talked about earlier.

🗝 In the letter, they found a file called IsThisARenderFromGame34Maybe.png.
🗝 A password-protected Easter page was found on the site.
🗝 We got anagrams from letters and guessed them: HAUNTED, IMPOSTER.
🗝 In the pictures on the page, we found the word Tuesday (should we wait for something today?).

And we downloaded that render. Look: there are entertaining paintings on the wall with images from previous games. Is this really a screenshot from the game?

In general, nothing is clear yet, there are a lot of mysteries :) In general, this quest to find clues — the keys to the teaser itself somehow refers to the name "Mystery of the Seven Keys".

👇🏻 By the way, write in the comments or throw some lights if you want us to show screenshots of how the fans found this render.

Update

Today Calina Herman (aka @StoryRetold) found one more screenshot of the future Nancy Drew game on the HeR Interactive website! 🔍

And the most important thing that on the new screenshot we can see the same library as on the previous one.

P. S. The screenshot has already been deleted from the website, but we were on time to download it.

We wish you spend time with those who are dear to you. May you feel the warmth and love in your heart, peace and happiness during this joyful holiday!

We were waiting for this... And it finally happened! There are news about the 34th Nancy Drew game! 🕵🏼‍♀️

Sorry for the loud headline, although it's almost true :)HeR Interactive newsletter subscribers received the unusual email today. The letter said that Nancy Drew will celebrate her 93rd birthday this month debuted on April 28, 1930. Along the way are invited to buy merch items, and then — the most interesting. And no less mysterious:

🗝 Games Trivia with highlighted letters in the text and on the backgrounds of the old and known ND games. Is everything old and known? In the one picture there is a barely visible castle, which, it seems, we haven't seen before.

If you put all the letters together, you get the word thirty-four. An obvious allusion to the 34th part.Do you remember our news about "The Mystery of the Seven Keys" title patent by HeR?

🔎 Next in the newsletter is a sheet of paper with the text “It's your day. Saturday, April 1st, Morning". And there's a camera icon. If you click a picture, you'll be redirected to Nancy Drew PC Games page in Instagram. And... there's not any post!

They had about thousands post, and now all them gone. Maybe it's a joke? Or maybe they did it on purpose?

📜 The last one is the final letter on recognizable paper with which the reader wrote Nancy's old cases. There, on her own behalf, she expressed her gratitude to us, the fans, for her devoted support in the investigation of so many years.

At the end, she writes that ... she packs her bags and comes to a new business!

It would be observed, where even more joyful? You have been hacked ("you have been hacked"). And this is strange, because the site does not say anything about it.

Here's the news, Clue Crew! Is this a joke or true? All presenters are well aware that today is April Fool's Day. It would be cruel to joke with such a loss of loyal fans. We believe that this is a clear hint for a new part :)

Stay tuned! We will keep up to date with the news.