Girl Sleuth (23 page)

Even Mildred, once too proud to accept a lesser fee, had come back to the fold. Less than a year after she had departed, she received a letter from Edna asking her if she would undertake the next Ruth Fielding, which was to be called, appropriately,
Ruth Fielding and Her Greatest Triumph; or, Saving Her Company from Disaster.
Having learned, thanks to Walter Karig, a little bit about how much work it was to train a new writer, Edna must have changed her mind about Mildred's worth because she offered Mildred the highest possible fee the Syndicate could afford. “Our
price for the volume is $100.00. We will furnish you with a complete outline as formerly. We are sorry that the original remuneration which you received cannot be offered, but as sales on all books, these included, are too uncertain to warrant an increase we will have to again ask you to cooperate with us.”

Mildred was feeling the pinch of the Depression at last. Two of her girls' series had been canceled in 1931 and 1932, but, still, she was not going to admit to Harriet and Edna that she had less work—or, at least, she was not going to admit it outright. “In regard to writing the new volume of the Ruth Fielding series, I have been taking this under consideration,” she wrote back. “Providing arrangements can be made with you so that this does not interfere with my regular work, I am willing to do the book at your price.”

Ruth was headed for marriage, however, and it proved fatal for sales. Apparently little girls, unlike their mothers, still did not think catching a man was the be-all and end-all. Mildred wrote the final two books in the series,
Ruth Fielding and Her Greatest Triumph
and
Ruth Fielding and Her Crowning Victory,
before it was canceled by the publisher, leaving Edna and Harriet to cast around for some new characters to fill the void. They knew “from talking with other publishers and reading articles such as those which appear in the
Publishers Weekly
that mystery stories for girls far outsell any other variety.” Accordingly, they conceived of two more girl detective series, the Kay Tracey books and the Dana Girls. The first featured Kay, flanked by a pair of chums who resembled George and Bess, and the second a pair of school-aged sisters named Jean and Louise who solve mysteries between classes at their boarding school. Both series made their first appearances in 1934. By design, the Syndicate and Grosset & Dunlap were flooding the market with Nancy Drew–inspired girls—the Dana Girls were even being written by the famous Carolyn
Keene. As Leslie McFarlane, the series' first author, characterized the invention of the Dana Girls many years later, “Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were doing so well that the Syndicate decided to launch a new series which would combine the best features of both. The Hardy Boys had shown that two heroes were better than one, because they always had someone to talk to and they could take turns in being rescuer and rescuee. So why not
two
Nancy Drews?” By the time Mildred had sent Ruth Fielding off into the sunset with Tom Cameron, the Danas and Kay Tracey were well on their way to production.

Harriet and Edna, meanwhile, had other problems on their hands. Edna Yost's follow-up article in
Publishers Weekly
had come out, and they were none too pleased with her work. She had revealed a number of their secrets and, even worse, had attacked not only the values of their company, but the reputation of their dead father. In spite of her experience with the Wellesley Press Board, it was in Harriet's nature to look for the best in everyone, and that included the media. She fancied herself something of an untouchable at the top of a famous company and felt that she had treated Yost graciously, so she was entirely unprepared for the broadside.

The sisters responded to Yost in the only way they could, with a letter to the editor of
Publishers Weekly.
They were angry that “certain facts [were] published without our permission” and hurt by the slur against their father:

 

. . . there is a sentence which is most unjust, if not actually libelous. I quote from page 1596:

“
The late Edward Stratemeyer hired a staff to produce the actual writing of dozens of series books—a process which is devoid surely of either literary sincerity or literary merit.
”

As we are carrying on the work of Mr. Stratemeyers Syndicate, and bend every effort to produce books of literary merit and true worth, we feel that the above quotation as well as other parts of the article need an explanation, both from Miss Yost and your concern.

As subscribers to The Publishers Weekly, we heartily disapprove of the kind of criticism found in the article entitled: “Who Writes the Fifty-Cent Juveniles?”, and as executrixes of Mr. Stratemeyers Estate and owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate we ask that you retract the latter half of the above-quoted statement.

 

They had had no experience of such things before, and the high-handed tone of their letter did not provoke the reaction they no doubt expected, which would have included a retraction. Instead, the editor of the magazine wrote back to put them in their places. “My dear Mrs. Adams: It is very doubtful whether literary estimates by a reputable critic could by any stretch of the term be considered libelous. Edna Yost is an experienced writer, and she developed the two articles we printed about children's books out of a desire to study an interesting phenomenon, i.e., the enormous sale of books for boys and girls in fifty cent series. The Publishers Weekly point of view is a booktrade interest, but we give authors of signed articles the usual freedom of expression.”

The result was that the Syndicate decided to make it as hard as possible for journalists to write about their business practices, their founder, and their ghostwriters. Harriet refused from then on to give out any information about her father, intending to write a biography of him herself some day (she never did). Their solution to the ghostwriter problem, on the other hand, was as simple as it was bizarre; they would pretend the series writers were, in fact, real people. They put their plan into effect just a few weeks after Yost's article came out.
Who's Who,
an encyclopedia of noteworthy Americans, had been asking for information on the various series writers, and the book's editor was to be the first victim, as it were, of their ruse. “Enclosed also is a letter which we should like to have you copy on your own stationery and send out,” they wrote to Laura Harris at Grosset, as well as to all their other publishers. “We have had several requests from
WHO'S WHO
for life sketches of Carolyn Keene and Laura Lee Hope. We think it best that these letters be answered in the way suggested, and trust that this will meet with your approval. We think it is inadvisable to inform the publishers of
WHO'S WHO
that these names are pseudonyms, thus making it unnecessary to reveal any of the business secrets which are held in contract between Grosset & Dunlap and The Stratemeyer Syndicate.” The enclosed letter itself, though brief, did nothing short of bestowing personhood on fake pen names. “We have forwarded letters from you addressed to Miss Carolyn Keene and Miss Laura Lee Hope, and you may rest assured that if the authors wish to have biographical sketches in
WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA
, they will write directly to you, giving such dates. Yours very truly, Grosset & Dunlap.”

It was the first step in what would eventually become an all-out campaign to create personas for the Syndicate's most valued pseudonyms, brought on at least in part by the long-standing tradition of anonymity, but also, as the years went on, by the desire to keep the Syndicate entirely under the control of the family. If they were the only ones who knew who wrote the manuscripts, then they were the only ones who could produce them for publishers, which gave them invaluable leverage. Eventually, every “author” would acquire stationery with his or her name at the top of it, a bit of biographical background, and a signature, generally forged by Harriet whenever it was called for.

Carolyn Keene, of course, was the Syndicate's most illustrious author. “We have received our royalty statement, and thank you for it,” Edna wrote to Grosset & Dunlap in the summer of 1933. “We wish that all our books might sell like the Nancy Drews, but considering the times we are satisfied.” Walter Karig had by this time written three Nancy Drews—
Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles,
and
The Password to Larkspur Lane
—but they were to be his only volumes. Though Karig's titles were selling as well as Mildred's had, Edna and Harriet found that his manuscripts required extensive rewriting when they came into the office. They were also annoyed at him because of repeated failures to keep his work for the Syndicate secret. As far back as 1931, Harriet had reprimanded him for talking about it, to which he had replied—with characteristic jubilance—“Your mildly implied rebuke for violating a rule of anonymity with which I was not familiar is hereby taken to heart and indelibly engraved upon that organ, which is a mass of similar memoranda.”

Whatever the cause for his departure from the series, by early 1934 the sisters had decided to try to convince Mildred to come back to Nancy Drew. The next title,
The Clue of the Broken Locket,
had been chosen, and the book was to be featured in the summer Sears Catalog, which gave it the potential to sell even more copies than usual. For Nancy's biggest outing yet—her chance to really break into the mainstream of America—Harriet and Edna hoped to have her originator back on the case. Despite Laura Harris's repeated queries about the progress of the manuscript, though, the sisters were slow to assign it. Perhaps reasoning that Mildred could turn it around as quickly as she always had in the past because she was familiar with the basic parameters of Nancy and her stories, Edna held off writing to her until March of 1934. When she did, she filled the note with compliments,
possibly to soften the blow of an even lower fee. “We wonder whether you have any time in which you might write the next volume in the Nancy Drew series . . . We were very much pleased with the latest Ruth Fielding. We thought the story especially interesting and well done, a fitting climax to that long series. In view of the fact that this particular set of books has been completed, we trust that you will be willing to arrange your own writings, so that the new mystery story can be done conveniently, and that we will not lose contact with you. We will pay $85 for this story. Trusting to hear from you favorably at once.”

They were not disappointed. Not only did Mildred agree to take on
The Clue of the Broken Locket;
she promised to bring all her expertise and even affection to the task. “I have always been rather partial to ‘Nancy,'” she replied, “and it will seem quite like old times to be writing about her again.”

9

“‘I'
M
N
ED
N
ICKERSON
,' he declared with a warm smile. ‘Anything I can do?'” With these seven immortal words, a relationship for the ages was set into motion. Ned Nickerson, blond, handsome, and always willing to assist, was on the case—as a sidekick, anyway. In his first appearance, he rescues Nancy, George, and Bess from a fender bender they've gotten into on the way home from investigating a suspicious fire. “You girls haven't seen the last of me,” he calls after the departing trio at the end of the scene. “I know the road to River Heights and you mustn't be surprised if I follow it one of these days.” Indeed, Ned was soon to become a regular fixture in Nancy's hometown and elsewhere, ever ready to ingratiate himself with his teen love, ever second fiddle to a good mystery. A college man, he takes Nancy to well-chaperoned dances and eventually finds friends for Bess and George as well so they can triple-date, all without receiving so
much as a peck on the cheek in return. Strong and dependable, he nevertheless remains the epitome of the downtrodden boyfriend. Finding Nancy in a dangerous situation that could easily have gone awry toward the end of
The Clue in the Diary,
he chides her, only to be out-chided. “‘Perhaps it was a daring plan,' Nancy admitted with a pleased little laugh, for she could tell that her friend was actually disturbed, ‘but it worked, and that's the most important thing.'” As written by Mildred, Nancy was as clever as ever and still just a little bit of a know-it-all.

Ned, on the other hand, was doggedly useful, but only up to a point. He was designed to be that way, a plan made abundantly clear in the letter Edna sent to Mildred along with the outline for 1934's
The Clue of the Broken Locket.
Having been off the series for only three books since
The Clue in the
Diary—the 1932 book in which Ned made his grand entrance—it was unlikely that Mildred would have forgotten Ned's defining quality. But just in case, Edna wanted to remind her that while Ned may have been perfect husband material, a husband he would never be. In fact, she had another word altogether for him. “He does not appear . . . in the new Nancy Drew,” she informed Mildred, “unless you should choose to use him as a filler.”

The men in Harriet's and Edna's real lives—their professional lives, at least—were, alas, not nearly so easily controlled. Around the time that Mildred was working on
The Clue of the Broken Locket
—she chose in the end not to include poor Ned at all, even as an appealing distraction—a writer for
Fortune
magazine named Ayers Brinser became the latest person to turn unwelcome attention on the Syndicate, after sending Harriet a note saying that he was working on a piece about “boys' books in which the major efforts will be devoted to analyzing the phenominal
[sic]
sale of these publications. It is, of course, particularly important that the Stratemeyer Syndicate be consulted.”