The Mystery of the Missing Crowley Clock - A Daylight Saving Time Mystery by Jennifer Fisher

Tick tock. Tick Tock.

The sound of the old Crowley Clock ticking away through the night had kept the famous teenage sleuth Nancy Drew awake for hours on this dreary and rainy November day.  

With one eye open she glanced askance at her bedroom doorway as the sounds of the melodious tick tock drifted upstairs. With haste, she threw off her covers and jumped out of bed. She stepped into her slippers and snuck down the stairs of the Drew home careful not to awaken housekeeper Hannah Gruen and her father Carson Drew.

Her faithful dog Togo was curled up sleeping on his bed by the fireplace where the Crowley clock sat. Nancy glanced at the clock and rolled her eyes. Last night, she’d forgot to set it back an hour before going to bed after the Halloween party at her friend Bess Marvin’s house. She dreaded the yearly clock changing as it was so dreadfully boring as there was nothing mysterious about it.

As she stood and stared at the clock, a plan began for formulate in her head. “How clever,” she thought as she smiled triumphantly!

She ran upstairs kicking her slippers to the corners of her room and got ready for the big day ahead. Smartly dressed in her favorite blue dress, she glanced at herself in the mirror and realized she’d forgotten her trusty cloche hat. Ensemble complete, with confidence she bounded down the stairs to the sounds of the house awakening.

Hannah was bustling about the kitchen making coffee and waffles. Her father Carson was heading into his study to go over his latest case. Togo was chewing on his favorite stick. And then there was that darn Crowley clock practically challenging her from the mantel with its incessant tick tock.

After the best steaming hot waffles this side of the Muskoka, Nancy announced she was off on an adventure. With the Crowley clock tucked under her arm, she started to head for her blue roadster when Carson queried, “Where are you taking that old clock, Nancy?”

“Oh, this old thing,” Nancy stalled looking at the clock and back at her curious father. “I’m taking it over to George Fayne’s so she can tinker with it. I might let her keep it for a while too as she always enjoyed hearing about how I solved my first case.” Nancy smiled brightly, hoping that Carson wouldn’t suspect anything was up.

Carson stared at Nancy for a beat and then quipped, “Better remember to set it back an hour, Nancy!” With a wink as if he was intuitively in on the plan, he went back to his study. Nancy turned and practically ran outside to her roadster.

Instead of heading toward Bess and George’s homes, she turned north onto the River Road to head along the Muskoka River, winding her way through River Heights. Taking a side road across the river, she headed into the woods. Not a soul was stirring about, even the forest animals were still slumbering at this early hour.

Parking at the side of the turnoff to Moon Lake, she saw the old Twin Elms estate in the distance. Solving The Hidden Staircase at Twin Elms was one of her favorite mysteries. Nostalgically, she glanced at the old Crowly Clock sitting on her passenger seat. “Now don’t you get me all nostalgic too, you old clock!” She frowned and turned back to the view ahead. Spotting a path into the woods, she shook her head with resolve as if to ward off all thoughts of doubt that were starting to percolate in her keen mind.

Nancy marched into the woods carrying the old Clock along with a small shovel she kept in her roadster. Looking furtively about, she hoped she wouldn’t be seen by anyone as she slipped behind a tree. Seeing that the coast was clear, she found a spot to dig a small hole. She’d brought a wooden box with her and encased the clock inside. Sighing, she shoved the box into the hole and began to cover it with dirt.

“You were a great prize. Memories of my first case solved! But I’m tired of falling back every year and springing forward with you. I’d much rather be solving mysteries than changing old clocks! Enough is enough. I’ve got a new case to focus on now, some ghostly shenanigans around some place called Blackwood Hall. I’ve no time to spare on this clock changing business. Goodbye…and thanks for the memories…” As if eulogizing the old clock, she smoothed the last bit of dirt over the clock and its final resting place.

But then as she turned to head back to her roadster, she could hear faintly the sounds of the old clock as if crying out to her. “Tick tock. Tick tock.” It was as if the clock was alive and haunting her from the depths of its forest grave. Nancy turned and sprinted to her roadster and hopped inside. She tore off through the woods driving as fast as she dared. As if distance between her and that old tick tocker would erase what she had done. It would take a long time before the old clock would stop haunting her at night in her dreams.

For years the missing clock became the stuff of legends. A strange disappearance never solved. Burgled from the Drew home by swindlers. Pawned by George Fayne to pay for Judo lessons. Hidden away in the depths of the Smithsonian along with Carolyn Keene’s old typewriter. So many stories, and Nancy would just smile sweetly when asked about it and change the subject. Only Nancy Drew would ever know the secret of what happened to the old Crowley Clock that stormy November day…

By Jennifer Fisher

Nancy Drew Leatherbound Edition of Old Clock, Hidden Staircase, Bungalow Mystery, Lilac Inn

Check out the new Nancy Drew Leatherbound Edition with a historical introduction written by me for the 1930 Nancy Drew books #1 The Secret of the Old Clock, #2 The Hidden Staircase, #3 The Bungalow Mystery, and #4 The Mystery at Lilac Inn. Canterbury Classics is publishing and it's being distributed by Simon & Schuster. Available September 29, 2026. You can pre-order yours at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If you are attending the Nancy Drew Convention in St. Louis, signed copies will be there too. 

I was asked last year by Canterbury Classics to write a historical introduction for this leatherbound set and it was a nice opportunity to introduce these 1930 texts and bring in some historical information for fans and enthusiasts of Nancy Drew. I had a couple of months to work on it and feel like I did all the fans proud, they liked it too. I hope you all enjoy the introduction I wrote and learn something fun about Nancy Drew's history. It's a beautiful leatherbound volume! The Amazon link has a video of them holding and opening the book which is fun to check out. The endpapers inside are the vintage orange silhouette endpapers. Even though those were not published in 1930, they add some vintage flair. I think they did a great job and like how they styled the covers and spine, though I've not got my copy just yet to see it in person, but the photos I'm sharing here look amazing! It's a very reasonably priced leatherbound edition at $29.99. 

 

Murder & Mayhem in The Nancy Drew Files Series - Celebrating the 40th Anniversary

It was the summer of 1986 between 7th and 8th grade and my thirteen-year-old self was at Waldenbooks at the mall with my mom who also loved to read and so we’d make trips to the bookstore often. I’d grown up on classic Nancy Drew hardcovers with mysteries about old clocks, hidden staircases, old attics, phantoms and not-so haunted places. And there I was in my acid wash jeans with hair that probably had half a can of hair spray immersed into it and there on the cover of a YA style paperback book, was a new more modern Nancy Drew – also imbibing in the hair spray it would seem. With her purple jacket and jeans and big hair she was confident and there was some guy who seemed a lot older than he was in the background with a car explosion behind him and smoke and fire billowing off the cover. This was The Nancy Drew Files. Case #1 – Secrets Can Kill. And it was about to get very interesting in Nancy Drew’s world!

The tag line on the back cover read, “Nancy Drew goes back to high school – but this time, the curriculum is murder.” Murder! This was not your grandmother’s Nancy Drew. And I was intrigued. Home, it went with me and from then on, I was hooked and thank goodness for quite some time, they would publish quite a few titles per year to give me that Files fix. I was just at the right age for this series and it resonated. Not so much the murder part, though I feel this could have started me down the path of being a true crime junkie, but what resonated more likely was the fashion, romance and suspense which were exciting. Targeting teen girls, this series focused more on those topics than in any previous incarnation. And murders were now Nancy’s bread and butter, something that was not a part of the classic Nany Drew books. Inside each book before the case began was a page from Nancy’s Casebook listing her assignment (later her case), her contact, suspects and complications. I always enjoyed this breakdown of the case before reading the book.

The Nancy Drew Files series ran from 1986 to 1997 and spanned 124 books. Titles were all about murder or romance like Secrets Can Kill, Murder on Ice, and Heart of Danger. Nancy wasn’t dealing with faux ghosts, antiquities thieves, or generic bungalow robbers. There were more sophisticated criminals in this series, who would murder someone and also attempt murder to get Nancy Drew off the case, rather than just leaving her in a closet to “starve.” The stakes were much higher, the fashion more haute couture (save for some of those sweater/suits that made her look more Golden Girls in hindsight), and the romance was much more prominent and trickier. Often a villain was dating Nancy, Bess or George and Nancy and Ned Nickerson were on and off again. Times had definitely changed in Nancy’s world. There were more Pop Culture references and things that would date these books, the stuff that wasn’t so dated in the classics. The Hardy Boys also had a similar update in the Hardy Boys Casefiles series. And there was a crossover series, with 36 Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys SuperMysteries.

When The Nancy Drew Files series debuted, in the back of book one was a contest, The Nancy Drew Files Sweepstakes. There were over 3200 prizes up for grabs. There were Walkmans, boom boxes and stereo systems and lots of copies of the Nancy Drew Files books. All you had to do was fill out an entry form or send a card in with your info to enter the contest. Advertising also asked, “Have you Seen Nancy Drew Lately?” Ads noted that “Nancy Drew has become a girl of the 80s! There is hardly a girl from seven to seventeen who doesn’t know her name.” They promised “more romance, fashion, mystery and adventure.” It was all about teen stuff, travel with Bess and George, and even rock concerts were promised to the targeted older readers. There were promo booklets and bookmarks given out by bookstores like B. Dalton that are quite collectible today among Nancy Drew Files collectors. In the 1990s, computer game maker HeR Interactive began to create games based on some of the books in the Files series including their first game, Secrets Can Kill. There was a planned River Heights USA clothing line that was never produced.

Prior to the Files series debuting in 1986 we’d had quite the transition behind the scenes through the previous seven years. Nancy Drew had gone from yellow spine picture covers to paperbacks in 1979 resulting in a lawsuit amongst her publishers and The Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1980 during the 50th anniversary of Nancy Drew. Ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson testified at the trial. Harriet Stratemeyer Adams had passed away in 1982 and the Syndicate was sold to Simon & Schuster in 1984. Lots of changes had come Nancy Drew’s way. Publicity was widespread when the Files series debuted. Also debuting that year was Carol Billman’s book on the Syndicate, The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and the Million Dollar Fiction Factory. Headlines for the new Files series debut ran the gamut from “Nancy Drew Updates her Image with Wardrobe, Love and MTV,” (Ellen Creager writing for the Detroit Free Press), “Nancy Drew Takes a Step into the 1980s,” (Sylvia Sachs), “Nancy Drew: Then and Now,” (Deborah Felder, Publishers’ Weekly, May 1986), “The Mysteries of the New Nancy Drew,” (Deborah Kaplan, Detroit Free Press), and so on. “New,” “1980s,” and “Updated” were themes running in these articles.

The Publishers’ Weekly article by Felder revealed that Simon & Schuster was spending a whopping $125K on marketing and discussed those collectible giveaway booklets with chapters from the first several Files books. These booklets were distributed to bookstores but also junior high schools. It also mentions the planned fashion line of not only clothing but also cosmetics, that never was produced.

Mildred WirtBenson, working at the time for The Toledo Blade, was hit with the mass of articles out on the Files series and she took umbrage with Felder’s piece in Publishers’ Weekly and sent a letter which was published in the September 1986 issue. In her letter she attempted to correct the record as Felder had repeated the typical Syndicate publicity that Harriet Stratemeyer Adams had written most of the books. Mildred stated that she felt fans deserved the truth. Felder wrote a response also published in this issue and defended her article and her research which pointed to Adams and wrote that Mildred’s work and lack of recognition were typical of staff writers or ghost writers but did say that Mildred’s work deserved credit for making Nancy Drew a success.

Not all publicity was pro-Files. Patricia Holt, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle in the October 19, 1986 issue, felt Nancy Drew was “a professional sex tease for teenyboppers, a ‘Dynasty’ bimbo wandering through insipid plots with rock stars and high school dreamboats whose mere touch makes her forget her detective role.” Hypers! – as George might say.

At the 2013 estate sale of Mildred’s daughter, Peggy, there was a Nancy Drew Files Secrets Can Kill book that had been among Mildred’s books. Perhaps this long-time author and journalist had the last word on the Files series. Inside she wrote, “I had nothing to do with the writing of this book. Mildred Wirt Benson.”

For all its modernization, the added fashion and romance, and the murders, I still enjoyed The Nancy Drew Files series as I was also reading the Sweet Valley High series at the time. I was also continuing to read the digest paperbacks in the classic series and enjoying those too. I read through around Files #51 A Model Crime before I went off to college in 1991. I quit purchasing them, transitioning to the college scene and leaving all my Nancy Drew books back at home. When I starting seriously collecting all Nancy Drew books and spin-offs around 1997, I began to collect all the volumes I’d missed in the Files series, making a lot of visits to paperback exchange shops and used bookstores. And eBay too. 

I own several cover art paintings for the Nancy Drew Files, #83, Diamond Deceit, #85 Sea of Suspicion, and the last book #124 Crime at the Chat Café. Ghostwriter Vicki Berger Erwin donated her letters and files on writing Diamond Deceit to the Jennifer Fisher Nancy Drew Collection & Archive at the Toledo Public Library and will be speaking at our Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys 100th Conference in Toledo next April 15-17, 2027. The Toledo Public Library also has a Nancy Drew Files painting for book #38, The Final Scene which is one of our theme books for our 2026 Nancy Drew Sleuths St. Louis Convention as it was set in St. Louis when HeR Interactive created their computer game version for The Final Scene. Fans who attend the convention’s Meet & Greet party will get a chance to win a commemorative Nancy Drew Files 40th anniversary enamel pin.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 40 years since The Nancy Drew Files series debuted. I will always remember it fondly from my childhood and those teen years that I read my way through those books. Through Nancy Drew Files, I got to travel to all sorts of locations vicariously including several European stops in a trilogy of “passport to romance” over three volumes one summer. I learned even more sleuthing skills regarding crime scenes and murders and enjoyed the easy fun-filled entertainment these books brought. The great thing about Nancy was she still had the same zeal for solving crimes that she did in the classics, just in a more modern setting. Also debuting in 1986 were the ever-popular movies, Top Gun and Pretty in Pink. 1986 was a great year and I’ve enjoyed so much revisiting the 1980s for the 40th anniversary of this series. 

From Super Fan to Super Historian…The Case of the Missing Documents Or how MWB-HARP Came to Be

To celebrate the 121^st birthday of the original Nancy Drew ghostwriter, Mildred Wirt Benson, I ask you all to join me in fulfilling a legacy that was derailed a bit in the 1990s. Numerous papers highlighting Benson’s career not only in Nancy Drew but her many other books and series found themselves in private hands. Some have thankfully found their way back to the public in archives as some of these collectors are starting to downsize after thirty years.  

I wear a lot of hats in the Nancy Drew Collecting community. Author, researcher, consultant, Nancy Drew Sleuths President, event planner, licensee, Nancy Drew expert and fan. Over the years in this journey to following the clues to Nancy Drew, I have gone from fan of the books to collector of the books, to historian behind the scenes and throughout it all, it has been like trying to solve a puzzling Nancy Drew mystery at times. Especially when delving into the mysterious history behind Nancy Drew and her creators.

I’ve made numerous trips to archives over the last several decades, interviewed former Syndicate employees and ghostwriters and I’ve sleuthed out mysteries behind the scenes – and I often follow in the footsteps of history and of our famous sleuth!

Nancy Drew, though a fictional character created nearly one hundred years ago, has influenced many of her readers and has gone on many great adventures. So many since 1930 – over six hundred mysteries solved. She’s served as a role model to so many kids over the generations and even has inspired the likes of our US Supreme Court Justices. These books have been fun and entertaining, exciting and thrilling mysteries for kids, and even educational at times. They hooked kids to reading and made them fall in love with mysteries, cliffhangers, and saving the world, once case at a time! There is timeless nostalgia in every Nancy Drew book and fans still love to read them, reminisce about their childhood, and even collect pieces of it.

One of the greatest legacies is the fans, who have loved and treasured these books so much, that they have passed them down to their kids and grandkids over the years, helping to keep Nancy’s great spirit alive and giving the publishers a reason to keep reprinting them and keep producing new books in new series as the decades go by.

Part of the nostalgia lies in the fascinating history behind the scenes of the books among Nancy Drew’s creators from publishers to illustrators, to ghostwriters to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Thankfully a lot of the publishing history of these series and others produced by the Syndicate has been preserved in a large donation from Simon & Schuster in the 1990s of over 300 boxes of materials to the New York Public Library which one can sort through at the Manuscripts and Archives Division. There are even original art paintings and books, though the books have never been made available for viewing by the public yet. There are smaller archives and collections of some material scattered around at various universities, including Harriet Stratemeyer Adams’s own Wellesley College. And some of the people who worked at the Syndicate or for the Syndicate have archives of papers at universities – like Andrew Svenson and Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson’s archive is located at the University of Iowa’s Iowa Women’s Archive in Iowa City, IA.

Thanks to the donation of my Jennifer Fisher Nancy Drew Collection of over 5000 items in 2019 to the Toledo Public Library, we have begun to build up a wonderful archive of Benson’s original papers and items related to Nancy Drew plus other books and series written by Benson. The library has a Rare Book Room sponsored by The Toledo Blade up in their local history wing of the 3^rd floor, which is an amazing archive of local history, documents, art and original books. In the early 2000s the library acquired a full set of Benson’s 135 published books from collector Rick Sayers, a founding member of Nancy Drew Sleuths, and it is housed in the Rare Book Room. Also housed there are items from an estate sale of Benson’s only daughter, including Benson’s application for NASA’s journalist in space program plus awards and other ephemera.

Part of my mission, officially launched as MWB-HARP (Mildred Wirt Benson – Historical Artifacts Recovery Project) in 2025, is to play detective much like Nancy Drew and seek out original documents and letters related to Benson – many of which were sold in those 1990s sales. We have begun to reclaim quite a few of these documents in large part thanks to collectors, who have had them for around 30 years now, some just collecting dust on shelves or hiding away in filing cabinets, not living their best life. Now they can be preserved and properly archived for future generations of fans and scholars, so that the legacy of Nancy Drew and Benson among other creators will be preserved and can live on infinitely. It has become my mission in life to see every bit of it returned to these archives.

How can you help? If you own any original letters or documents related to Benson’s personal life, journalism career, writing career, etc. we would love to help you get these into archives – either in Iowa or Toledo so they can live their intended life and preserve history and this great legacy. Copies would be wonderful to create a record, but we’d prefer sales or donations if possible. It can be done!

In order for the library to be able to purchase items for the archives, please support the Nancy Drew Fund at the Toledo Public Library which helps us acquire these original documents or ephemera not in the collection. It also helps the collection grow and be archived, digitized among other collection goals.

I want to highlight some of the great items we’ve added to the collection in Toledo in the last year thanks to MWB-HARP and collectors who were willing to join in on this adventure to sleuth out historic ephemera and preserve it. Please see images (click for larger views) at the end of this blog of items listed below:

- 2 pages of a 3-page plot Mildred Wirt Benson sent to Edward Stratemeyer in the late 1920s which I personally acquired and donated at the 95^th Anniversary ND Conference in Toledo

- Nancy Drew Files Ghostwriter Vicki Berger Erwin’s manuscript and other associated letters and ephemera for Nancy Drew Files #83 Diamond Deceit

- Nancy Drew Notebooks #11 Pen Pal Puzzle painting from collector Victoria Broadhurst

- Nancy Drew Files painting for #38 The Final Scene from collector Ilana Nash

- Nearly 3 dozen publisher letters, royalty statements related to Benson’s own books and series including Penny Parker and her scout series

- MWB Signed Pirate Brig book

- Numerous articles, letters, signed books, photos and other memorabilia from close friend and Toledo Blade coworker, Nancy Hawkins

- Original Nancy Drew Reporter movie poster from Geoffrey S. Lapin

- Contents of Benson’s Toledo Blade desk, Penny Parker outline, St. Nicholas bound volume with her first published short story, The Courtesy, and more ephemera from Geoffrey S. Lapin

- Letter from author Leslie Garis to MWB, Garis’s grandfather Howard was a prolific ghostwriter for the Stratemeyer Syndicate as was her grandmother Lilian. From Collector Ilana Nash.

- Letter from Syndicate partner Andrew Svenson to MWB about her writing for the Dana Girls series. From Collector Ilana Nash.

- Framed Nancy Drew model shot for The Clue in the Broken Locket (Nappi 4^th art)

And there is more to come as soon a we get more donations for the Nancy Drew Fund at Toledo Public Library. If you’d like to help us acquire important pieces of Nancy Drew’s history and the life and career of Mildred Wirt Benson, please donate to the Nancy Drew Fund and be a part of helping create this great legacy. See below for details on donating to the fund.

I cannot think of a better way to spend my final decades on this earth in collecting, researching, writing and building this legacy for the ages. And thanks to the Nancy Drew community, we can do it and solve the case of the missing documents!

To donate to the Nancy Drew Fund, you can click here to donate online, or you can send a check payable to the Library Legacy Foundation with the memo line stating, “Nancy Drew Fund” and send it to the following address:

Library Legacy Foundation

The Nancy Drew Fund

325 N. Michigan Street

Toledo, OH 43604

If you have documents and ephemera you would like to donate or sell, or at least provide copies of, please e-mail me at nancydrewsleuth@aol.com or reach out via my PO Box at:

Jennifer Fisher

P.O. Box 511

Higley, AZ 85236-0511

The Case of Mildred Wirt Benson’s Biggest Fan & Friend - Geoffrey S. Lapin

Geoff's article, The Ghost of Nancy Drew, published 1989, Books at Iowa 

It was at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library in the 1960s that youngster Geoffrey S. Lapin found himself in the reference department. Shelves of bibliographies - many of them author bibliographies - tempted him. Curious about the authorship of his favorite series books like Nancy Drew, he found himself pulling volumes off the shelf, including the Cumulative Book Index and Durward Howes' American Women 1939-1940.

Intriguingly, inside the Cumulative Book Index, when he looked up Carolyn Keene, someone had left a penciled notation – see Mildred Augustine Wirt in the Durward Howes volume. While the identity of this mysterious pencil-inner is the stuff of legends, the finder of the notation, Geoff, would go onto be infamous in the Nancy Drew collecting world.

Geoff had just stumbled upon a rabbit hole of knowledge and down it he went. Grabbing the volume of the Durward Howes volume, he found Wirt listed and hordes of pen names among her own names from Wirt to Benson and began compiling a list of all the various books and series she wrote.

Then came the really fun part when he ventured out to a plethora of amazing used and antiquarian bookshops to find some treasures. Armed with bags full of the adventures of Penny Parker, Penny Nichols, Madge Sterling and many others, he set out to read them all.

And in vicariously enjoying the adventures of all of these series book heroes and heroines, he realized, not only was Wirt (now Benson) and amazing writer, but she was behind so many pseudonyms, and he now had an amazing list of over 130 books she’d written.

Several years later, he found himself on a bus to Toledo to visit Benson at the Toledo Blade, where she was working as a reporter. It was 1969, and Saturday Review had just recently published an issue with an article on The Stratemeyer Syndicate by Arthur Prager in which it stated that Harriet Adams had written books that Geoff knew Benson had written, thanks to all his sleuthing. Someone had to get to the bottom of this mystery!

Off the bus he went, headed to downtown Toledo to the Toledo Blade and he met Benson, the not-so-grandmotherly Carolyn Keene. More like a very ballsy blunt Carolyn Keene who lived a life of adventure and was an amazing writer and journalist. She took off her scarf and opened a drawer, and there sat that very issue of Saturday Review. Things were about to get very interesting!

From that point onward, Geoff became friends with Benson, championed her writing, researched and wrote numerous articles on her and other related Nancy Drew topics even meeting the family of Edward Stratemeyer. He even traveled by small plane to an island to interview Russell Tandy Jr., son of the first illustrator of the Nancy Drew books, Russell H. Tandy. He fired off letters to magazines and newspapers who ran articles with a more Syndicate slant, as if the ghost writers didn’t exist. He wanted to correct the record and felt Benson deserved credit for what she had done.

By the end of the 1970s and 1980, the publishers of Nancy Drew were headed to court, to battle over the copyright to Nancy Drew and publishing rights. Geoff was there, front and center to take in all the drama that ensued in Federal District Court in Manhattan, NY. He loves to quote Harriet Adams who looked at Benson on the day she arrived to testify and said, “I thought you were dead!”

The 1980s brought articles in publications like Yellowback Library and Geoff shared his knowledge and research with other collectors and fans. Then in 1993, the University of Iowa held a Nancy Drew Conference bringing over 500 fans and scholars to Iowa City, IA, where Benson had gotten her Bachelor’s in English and was the first person to get a Masters in Journalism in 1927. Geoff was there to support Benson who was to be honored with a distinguished alumni award among other fanfare.

After receiving worldwide recognition as Carolyn Keene, Geoff’s crusade to help Benson get recognition mostly complete, they settled into a comfortable friendship in the remaining years of her life with Thanksgiving visits and lots of letters between them over the years. When Benson passed away in May of 2002, that summer The Blade held a memorial for her at The Toledo Club. Geoff spoke to those in attendance about what an amazing woman, writer, and friend Benson was, even regaling the audience with amusing tales about her infamous driving exploits.

Geoff’s knowledge and research have been an amazing part of her legacy, and he’s built his own legacy over the years. He donated some wonderful items in the summer of 2025 to the Toledo Public Library including a 1930s Nancy Drew movie poster plus the contents of Benson's desk at the Toledo Blade when she passed as well as a Penny Parker outline, her first short story (The Courtesy) in a St. Nicholas bound volume, and other ephemera you can visit at the downtown branch. His papers and research will one day live in infamy at The University of Iowa, the Geoffrey S. Lapin Papers. where scholars and fans can learn more about his journey in helping to discover the identity behind the mysterious pseudonym Carolyn Keene. This is a legacy well-earned and deserved. Millie would be proud! 

Cupcakes celebrating Millie's 120th, Indianapolis 2025

Nancy Drew 2007 Movie Producer Jerry Weintraub’s Personal Signed Script

Nancy Drew 2007 Movie Producer Jerry Weintraub’s Personal Signed Script! I just acquired this piece of Nancy Drew history and am thrilled to add it to my collection and have a wonderful archive for it in Toledo Public Library to preserve it and make it available to scholars, fans and researchers! Click on images in this blog for larger views.

As the Nancy Drew Consultant for the 2007 Nancy Drew Emma Roberts film, not only did I have a great experience getting to consult on the film, but I also had a lot of fun collecting ephemera related to the film during the promotion of it and in years since. I probably have the largest collection of memorabilia from this film including signed and cast items and I still seek out a few things I missed getting. Most of my items are now in Toledo at the Toledo Public Library downtown branch in the second-floor children’s wing which houses my Jennifer Fisher Nancy Drew Collection. There’s a drawer that pulls out in the back of the room which has some items from the collection. I have a board for the 2007movie on Pinterest too which shows you what I have collected. The board has 81 items added to it though it needs updating.

For those of you who didn’t know, I worked with director Andrew Fleming who was revising the script written by Tiffany Paulsen and so most of my consulting was advising on things in the script, pointing out things in the classic books that he was a fan of, making suggestions like saving George from being called “Georgie” and other things. I did some consulting for the legal department regarding what was in the script and the books they held rights to – books 1-22 - and making sure there were not major elements in other books past those, etc. I also lent every book in my collection of volumes 1-22 in classic, book club edition, foreign edition and library edition – including my signed Old Clock which at the time just had a repro dust jacket, though I’ve since upgraded to a real first printing dust jacket. They liked all of my Russell H. Tandy illustrated series books and Mildred Wirt Benson’s other books and series outside Nancy Drew because of all the colorful dust jacket spines, so they wanted those too. If you play the intro sequence to the movie, you’ll see them zoom in on a ton of books, most of those came from my collection.

I was able to visit the set when filming was going on at the Warner Brothers lot and it was really cool to see the various rooms in the house they were staying at in the film including the attic, the secret passageway and the shelves of books. Outside they had the blue Nash convertible she drove in the film. I got to meet Emma Roberts, Tate Donovan who played Carson Drew and also Jeffrey Kurland who did the costumes for the film. He loved that I sat so Nancyish with my heels crossed to the side and brought out the big costume book of all the costumes with Polaroids and pictures inside for each character and so I got to look through that. Andy gave me a set tour and we discussed the filming and stuff I was consulting on. I got to see them film lines for some of the scenes in the house. It was really fun.

In 2007 when the movie premiered, I attended the premier at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre which was lots of fun and I also went to the after party at Grauman’s Magic Castle. Then shortly thereafter we had our Nancy Drew Sleuths 2007 Convention in Pasadena and everyone attending got to go see the film in a local movie theater and we had a tour of Warner Bros. Studio. Attendees got special copies of the newspaper prop from the film which was so neat for the fans to receive. There was also a lot of swag from the premier and after party that I acquired for the collection.

The producer of the film, Jeffrey Weintraub, was the one who through his production company hired me to consult on the film. He passed away in July of 2015 and his wife Jane in 2025. Their estate had a lot of memorabilia from various films and hobbies Jerry was into and some of it was auctioned off May 5-6, 2026 via Julien’s Auctions. I had received a Google News alert about the auction, it mentioning that he had worked on various films including Nancy Drew so that keyword hit. But then I thought to myself, I wonder if he had any Nancy Drew items from the filming that they are auctioning like cast/crew items maybe that I’d missed out on getting. So, I went to the auction website and searched and there were several things in the auction from the film – not very many though. The high-ticket items were a cast signed script of Jerry’s in a very nice leather “Nancy Drew” portfolio, his personal copy. And a sleuth kit prop from the movie that Nancy carried around when she was sleuthing. Also combined with other films in a lot of several items were the director’s chairback which I already had in my collection and a clapboard. There was a framed poster. A production script and some props. And some awards for various films including two Camie awards for the Nancy Drew film.

Jenn's Script From Consulting on the Movie

The cast and crew who signed Jerry’s script included Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew), Josh Flitter (Corky), Max Theriot (Ned Nickerson), Tate Donovan (Carson Drew), director Andrew Fleming, and cinematographer Alexander Gruszynski. When I was there on set in 2006, I had brought my copy of the script with me and Emma Roberts, Tate Donovan and Andy Fleming signed it for me. So, it was nice to have signatures of the other cast and crew on Jerry’s script.

Of course I was planning to bid, the signed script and the sleuth kit were my two objectives. I have included screenshots of final prices on the items auctioned below. I registered and kept an eye on the online bidding. On the first day of the auction when the Nancy Drew items would be auctioned off, I checked the progress and had to take my dad to an appointment. We made it to his appointment 10 minutes early and if you can believe it, that’s when the lots for the Nancy Drew items came up – perfect timing! I was so nervous, and as expected, the bidding on the sleuth kit went extremely high – it sold for over 4K with buyer’s premium. I knew it was likely a lost cause, so I had reasoned it out ahead of time that even though that sleuth kit was really cool, the personal script of Jerry’s with some cast and crew signings was really the big item of the auction and I wanted to bring that home to the rest of my 2007 collection and eventually it will reside in Toledo with the rest of my collection and 2007 movie items. I began bidding as the time was running out – there was a phone bidder I believe that went neck and neck with me on it, but my bid finally won out. If I bid against anyone I know, that’s always awkward, but I wouldn’t have known and this item will be preserved for history and have a great home in Toledo with the collection and archive there soon. 

This past week the script arrived, and I was on pins and needles, following the UPS delivery around as you can track the location and the driver was going all over the neighborhood in some odd fashion all around our house and back and forth but finally arrived and I had to sign for it. I did an unboxing video that I’ll put up at my Nancy Drew Expert Instagram. I look at it as holding a piece of Nancy Drew history and one that I was a part of which makes this item very special. I’m not sure if anyone in our collecting community got the expensive sleuth kit, but I’d love to hear about it if you did!

Jerry Weintraub's Nancy Drew Movie Script

If not or just someone in general purchased it, the Toledo Public Library which houses my Jennifer Fisher Nancy Drew Collection – the largest and most varied collection of Nancy Drew ephemera publicly on display – would love to have the sleuth kit someday via acquiring it through private sale or donation. So, if the winner or estate of this item, ever comes across this blog down the road who Is wanting to part with it themselves or through an estate, please consider at some point a sale or donation to the JFND Collection – you can contact me at nancydrewsleuth@aol.com or via the Toledo Public Library downtown branch to facilitate this. This goes for other items related to the film that one might want to sell or donate if we are missing them from the collection.