Nearly a century after she first appeared in print, girl-detective Nancy Drew is still thrilling young readers — and the original writer of the mystery series was an Iowa woman. Mildred Augustine Benson was a Ladora native who had a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Iowa.
Barbara Lounsberry, a retired University of Northern Iowa English professor, has researched Benson’s life and career and will give a talk about her this weekend.
“Mildred was a ghost writer for what was called the Stratemeyer Syndicate,” Lounsberry says. “In 1929, she gets this brief outline for a new teen sleuth named Nancy Drew, but it was Mildred who created the character and personality of Nancy Drew.”
The first book, “The Secret of the Old Clock,” was released in 1930 under the pen-name Carolyn Keene. Lounsberry credits Benson with shaking up the formula of the day and dreaming up a young detective who would have wide appeal.
“She thought other woman heroines, girl heroines, were too silly,” Lounsberry says, “so she really made an effort to make Nancy Drew intelligent, agile and clever.”
The collection of Nancy Drew books continued to grow well into the 1980s and eventually encompassed 78 separate mystery stories. The decades-long series all started with that first book, released during the early days of the Great Depression.
“It was an immediate hit,” Lounsberry says. “She was just a national hit immediately and our Mildred Augustine wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew volumes.”
Benson died in 2002 at age 96. Lounsberry will give a presentation about Benson at Mulberry Center Church at Wilson Brewer Park in Webster City at 1 PM on Saturday.
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)