Ned Nickerson
| Ned Nickerson | |
|---|---|
| Nancy Drew Mystery Stories character | |
| First appearance | The Clue in the Diary |
| Created by |
Edward Stratemeyer Mildred Benson |
| Portrayed by |
Frankie Thomas (Nancy Drew... Reporter) George O. Hanlon, JR.(The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries Max Thieriot (2007 film) |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Student |
| Family | James Nickerson (father) Edith Nickerson (mother) |
| Nationality | American |
Ned Nickerson is a fictional character in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series written under the collective pseudonym "Carolyn Keene". Ned is often referred to as Nancy Drew's boyfriend. He first appears in The Clue in the Diary, the seventh volume in the series.
Ned is described as a handsome and athletic young man who stands six feet and two inches tall, with dark brown hair with brown eyes. When Nancy first meets him, he is a sophomore at Emerson College. This makes him a year or two older than the eighteen-year-old Nancy in the current series. (When introduced in the 1932 storyline, Nancy was sixteen, but it could be assumed that Ned was not greatly older, but possibly three to four years). Aside from being a good student, Ned also plays for three of his school's varsity teams - basketball, baseball, and football. In some stories, he pursues outdoor interests including rowing and swimming, as well as scuba diving. His best friends include Buck Rodman (in the earliest, original stories), and, in revised stories and books after 1950, Burt Eddleton and Dave Evans, who are also students at Emerson.
Ned frequently sells insurance during the summer, although he has also taken a variety of other jobs.
When not in school, Ned lives with his parents James and Edith in the town of Mapleton. Mapleton is near Nancy's fictional hometown of River Heights.
Ned first meets Nancy in The Clue in the Diary, the seventh volume in the original series; however, the text of revisions in the first few volumes bear an apparent inconsistency, mentioning him as early as the fifth volume, The Secret of Shadow Ranch.
In The Clue in the Diary, Ned is at first mistaken for a car thief, but Nancy warms to him after he proves trustworthy later in the story. Throughout the revised yellow hardcovers (which include the first 56 books of the series), Ned is often described as Nancy's "special friend." The two frequently date, attending dances and the like, but commitment between them is never explicitly stated, although Ned is said to "date Nancy exclusively" in The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion. However, in the paperback editions that followed (books 57 to 175), Ned is specifically described as Nancy's boyfriend. In the 1944 version of The Secret in the Old Attic elements of Gothic romance exist: Nancy is in a spooky old house and worried about . The subplot doesn't involve a second mystery, but instead involves a mystery as to why Ned has invited Diane Dight for a date to a college function, instead of Nancy, and hasn't been in touch with her. This is one of the few stories that explores Nancy's emotions and feelings toward Ned; he rescues her in the story climax, in a damsel in distress setting, in the scary old mansion's attic. Nancy uncovers a plot between Diane and her own male admirer to split up the couple so they can individually pursue Ned and Nancy romantically.
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