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!
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