Book People Archive

The Mildred Wirt Benson Collection [Nancy Drew mystery series]



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http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/mwb/

The Mildred Wirt Benson Collection

Featuring digitized artifacts about University of Iowa alumna Mildred
Wirt Benson: journalist, pilot, amateur archaeologist, ghostwriter, and
the original author of the best-selling Nancy Drew B. mystery series

"For this series I have in mind one of our younger writers, a woman
who has just graduated from college and who has written one book already 
for my Syndicate and a number of stories for St. Nicholas and other 
high-grade magazines... She writes particularly well of college girls 
and their doings, both in college and out, and I feel that she could 
make a real success of this new line." -- Edward Stratemeyer, June 8, 
1927 [1 <http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/mwb/references.html>]

When the head of Stratemeyer Syndicate sought a ghostwriter for his 
latest girls' series, it's not surprising that he selected Mildred Wirt 
Benson. Young, intelligent, and competent, Benson represented the 
qualities he envisioned for a new, modern type of heroine. Stratemeyer's 
Nancy Drew, unlike many of her fictional peers, would not focus on 
school, romance, or domestic affairs, but on adventure and action. She 
was in good hands with the very active Mildred Wirt Benson. [more: 

<http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/mwb/intro.html>]