Summary
"Wow, Joe, I can't believe there are actually people out there who would mess around with all these awesome ancient ruins."
"Yeah, but Frank, it's because of them that ATAC sent us here to Rome, and nothing beats this Italian food!"
"Nancy, I can't believe it. When Aunt Estelle invited you to come on this trip to Italy with Bess and me, I figured it would give you a break from mysteries, and you've still managed to find one!"
"I know, George, but isn't it strange to find an American girl in the middle of Rome with no memory of how she got here?"
"Something tells me you'll get to the bottom of it all soon...."
One foreign city. One big crime.
Three of the best teen detectives of all time.
Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym that Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig used to write Nancy Drew books. The idea of Nancy Drew came from Edward Stratemeyer in 1929. He also had other series, that included the Hardy Boys, but he died in 1930 before the Nancy Drew series became famous. His daughters, Harriet and Edna, inherited his company and maintained Nancy Drew having Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Carolyn Keene, as the principal ghostwriter. During the Depression, they asked Benson to take a pay cut and she refused, which is when Karig wrote the books.
Karig's Nancy Drew books were Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, and Password to Larkspur Lane. He was fired from writing more books because of his refusal to honor the request that he keep his work as Carolyn Keene a secret. He allowed the Library of Congress to learn of his authorship and his name appeared on their catalog cards. Afterwards, they rehired Benson and she wrote until her last Nancy Drew book (#30) was written in 1953, Clue of the Velvet Mask.
Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer also contributed to the Nancy Drew series. Edna wrote plot outlines for several of the early books and Harriet, who claimed to be the sole author, had actually outlined and edited nearly all the volumes written by Benson. The Stratemeyer Syndicate had begun to make its writers sign contracts that prohibited them from claiming any credit for their works, but Benson never denied her writing books for the series.
After Harriet's death in 1982, Simon and Schuster became the owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate properties and in 1994, publicly recognized Benson for her work at a Nancy Drew conference at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. Now, Nancy Drew has several ghostwriters and artists that have contributed to her more recent incarnations.
(Bowker Author Biography)