Nancy Drew Mystery Stories

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories was the long-running "main" Nancy Drew series, published between 1930 and 2003, under the pen name Carolyn Keene.

Initially, titles were published by Grosset & Dunlap, but with volume 57 (1979), publication switched to Simon & Schuster. Most people consider these first fifty-six to be the original series and consider the Simon & Schuster series to be an entirely different series. The first fifty-six are considered to be the "classic" Nancy Drew books. In 2003, the series was discontinued, and a new, more contemporary series Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective was created in its place. In 2012, the girl detective series was ended and a new, current series Nancy Drew Diaries was launched.

Mildred Wirt Benson is credited with writing 22 of the first 25 novels in the series. Other authors contributed as well, but in 1959, Edward Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Adams began rewriting the earlier books in the series, sometimes substituting entirely new plots while retaining the same title.

In the Harriet Adams revisions, Nancy is depicted as a less impulsive, less headstrong girl of Stratemeyer’s and Mildred’s vision, to a milder, more sedate and refined girl— "more sugar and less spice", with an extensive wardrobe and a more charitable outlook. Helen Corning appears older, perhaps in preparation for her "write-out" after volume 4 of the revised series (no explanation was made in the original series) and to introduce Bess and her cousin George. Perceived racial stereotypes were omitted. Action increased significantly and became faster-paced. Greater developmental detail was given to Nancy and her home.

In 1979, after a court battle between the Stratemeyer Syndicate and Grosset & Dunlap, the original publishers (in hardback) of the first fifty-six Nancy Drew titles, publication rights to new stories were granted to Simon & Schuster. Titles from #57, The Triple Hoax (1979), were thereafter published primarily in paperback.

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