The Secret of the Old Clock was published in 1930 and describes Nancy as a pretty girl of sixteen with a curly golden bob and a blue roadster. Nancy is unusually capable: under her direction everything ran smoothly in the Drew household. After all, Nancy is the type of girl who is capable of accomplishing a great many things in a comparatively short time. She even found time for clubs and parties.
The opening chapter sets up the mystery. Nancy is bitching about the snobbish Tophams and how much worse they will be if they inherit all of Josiah Crowley's fortune. She soon meets more deserving potential beneficiaries.
From this first Nancy Drew story, I learned that poor people are good. At least the ones with cultured voices and manners, whose clothes while not expensive, were neat and well-made. (This theme is repeated in The Secret of Red Gate Farm, The Clue in the Diary, and The Clue in the Crumbling Wall.)
Here are some other lessons.
Driving could be dangerous in 1930. Sudden rainstorms changed roads into seas of mud. (There were many of these storms that Nancy had to navigate: good thing she was such a capable driver and had chains with her.)
Bad guys are rough looking with cold and cruel faces. They growl, sneer, and berate each other savagely.
Unfortunately, the early books also have a legacy of racism. The "colored" caretaker Jeff Tucker (at least he gets a name) speaks in "dems" and "dat's" (as do others Blacks in later volumes.) A band of robbers get him drunk so they can take the furniture from the Tophams' summer cottage. Nancy could have been a little nicer to Jeff. He did save her from a locked closet after she had been "left to starve" (title of chapter XVI) by the robbers.
In 1959, many Nancy Drew mysteries were revised and modernized. It was good to get rid of the racial stereotypes, but as my sister said, other things were lost. The Nancy Drew sleuth website has a great article about the revisions focusing on The Secret of the Old Clock.
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