1980s Nancy DrewBy the 1980s we had quite a different looking Nancy Drew--published now in paperback by Simon & Schuster with early art by Ruth Sanderson. These were Wanderers at first and then Minstrels. Digest sized paperbacks. They began with internal illustrations but later down the road they dropped those. The internal illustrations at first were really nice! Nancy has a modern preppy 80s look to her. The covers to me--many of these earlier Wanderer first art covers from #57 to #78 had a very Gothic feel to them and you can get a sense of that from some of the ones pictured below:
Flying Saucer is no doubt one of those love it or hate it books--the bad swamp gas and weird space dreams were a bit "out there" for me ;-) I wrote a somewhat humorous piece on this book that was in SP&F years ago I should dig out sometime and reprint here.
One of my favorite covers has always been The Secret in the Old Lace--with the Gothic castle, fog and the mysterious man in the background. Love it! A lot of these earlier paperbacks are very much similar to the style of the classic Nancy Drew books since the Syndicate was working on most of these.
Jenn:)
5 comments:
Wow, they really did look like gothic novels on the outside. Neat!
Nancy
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Agreed--good covers and nice internals. The Wanderer design with the arch and color and top and bottom borders is nicely done. When I was a teen, though, it was disappointing though to have Nancy go to paperback--but now I'm glad she survived so long!
I really enjoy the early paperbacks, and Captive Witness is one of my favorite Nancy Drew books. I just love the dress on the cover.
When I was younger I thought these were a completely different series, like the Files, and wondered why I could never find any of the earlier volumes!
Rebecca
I have to admit I've not yet read anything beyond the fifty-six. I sort of remember when these came out, but they looked so far from the Nancy Drews I knew and loved, I dont' think I associated them with "my" Nancys and just didn't want to read them. Plus, by that time, I had two little ones running around under foot, and I'm afraid Nancy was the furthest thing from my mind!
I grew up on the UK Armada versions and even in the 80s I found them a bit old text wise.
Tiara
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