Nancy Drew 2011 Convention Clues #28

Meet Dawn!

Growing up in the late 1950's and 1960's in rural Brevard, North Carolina, I read the Nancy Drew stories feverishly, first the dust jacketed editions and more often the later picture cover ones. I remember buying the books at the local Crest dime store and exchanging with friends to make sure I read every one. I have always been a voracious reader and also read "good" literature. But I can still remember being enraptured by Nancy and the stories, not being able to put down the books. As I became a teenager, I stopped reading those books. I re-discovered my love of Nancy Drew in the early 1990's, when I was called home to clear out my old childhood "stuff" from my mother's basement, including boxes of my old children's books. I travel for work and started spending travel time and weekends around the Greensboro, NC area (where I have lived for 25 years) checking out every used book store and antique store. In the 1990's, it was much easier to find books in these stores. I collect all the girls series by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Grosset & Dunlap and earlier Cupples & Leon publications. My favorite finds will probably always be the first two "thick" Nancy Drews' I found in stores, The Clue in the Diary in an old used book store and The Haunted Bridge in an antique store, mixed in among older, "thick' Bobbsey Twins.

Click on the images below to view larger images:

The Nancy Drew's with dust jackets are on a book shelf in the living room. I have a pretty complete set, need a few unusual printings and need most of the first format's (I have a 3rd printing of Old Clock with laser dust jacket, a Bungalow Mystery with a real dust jacket in first format 4th printing, and a first format Shadow Ranch without dust jacket).

Nancy Drew picture covers are on a book shelf in the downstairs den. Have a full set of original story and revised story picture covers (although not necessarily first printings) and all the original paperbacks through #175. Also other book formats and collectibles (some of these are behind the picture cover books on each shelf and can't be seen here).

Dawn