Book Review: Carolyn Keene's "The Secret of the Old Clock" (1930)

http://www.nancydrewsleuth.com/mysterystories110.html.

Carolyn Keene's novel The Secret of the Old Clock is the first book of the Nancy Drew series, introducing a girl of sixteen, Nancy Drew, who untangles various mysteries.

 

This didactical novel clearly divides the bad and good characters - and the good characters are always triumphant. Furthermore, the novel has a typical characteristic found in almost all children's literature: the parents or grown-ups don't get in Nancy's way, her mother being dead and her father busy. Nancy is given agency, and so are the readers reading the novel.

 

Nancy is portrayed to be a "perfect" girl for young girl readers of that time, constructed to become their role model and heroine: she is pretty, kind, shrewd, and brave. She is also independent: Nancy driving a car is highlighted in almost every chapter and she actively gets clues to solve cases. But Nancy is also her father's "good" daughter. She does get some help from her father and police officers throughout the series. She is attractive, slender, and has blond hair and blue eyes - a "perfect" girl also for the adults, maybe even more perfect in the male gaze.

 

Nancy is clearly the modern girl, but is she relatable to all girl readers? Being a girl from the white upper/middle class, Nancy wears fashionable clothes and drives in her blue convertible (Barbie got her first car in 1962, which is 30 years after Nancy Drew's first novel!); she has enough time and money to spare, helping people in need. She enjoys her freedom and knows her place, willing to help people who seem to be less off than her. In fact, her privilege makes her character shine. Nancy and the Topham sisters are even juxtaposed to show that Nancy is clearly a distinguished person - but perhaps all this is shaped through her upper/middle-class burden.