Who who is Nancy Drew?

She’s coming back to TV, but is this a good thing? A fun personal essay on the history, impact, and future of everyone’s favourite unpaid detective.

Nancy drove a sporty blue car. She courted danger. She got knocked down, and she got up again. (Literally: A lot of the books have Nancy losing consciousness at a vital moment, like one of those fainting goats.) She solved the mystery. Her bravery was applauded. Along the way, she interacted with her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, who made passive-aggressive comments about the way his girlfriend was always doggedly pursuing clues instead of him, and hung out with her best friends, George and Bess. Of all the characters, George is the most futuristically out of place in the original books: She is inevitably described as boyish and handsome with short hair and a taste for athletic competitions. I’m not alleging that the series’ pseudonymous author, Carolyn Keene, planted a crypto-lesbian in her detective tales, but I’m not alleging she didn’t.