My daughter and I have been slowly building her collection of Nancy Drew books.  We have some that are older (vintage) and some that are newer.  We discovered that the newer books have been changed, although the meaning has been kept.  Nowhere on these newer books do we see anything about "abridged" or any such markings. 

Can anyone tell me what they might know about this?  Did they feel they needed to "modernize" the language?   I always thought they simply reprinted them.  What a shame...I am so disappointed!

Thank you,

Kathy in California

Hi Kathy,

I have been gradually assembling a collection of Nancy Drew books for a relative, & specifically, the version of the books that I read growing up.  I, as well, was originally under the impression that there was one text 'version' of the Nancy Drew books, & was surprised when I learned that that was not the case (no pun intended).

The following site has a nice summary & chronology (along with additional specs) relevant to the series:

(summary, including cover art galleries)    http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/nancydrew.html   

(list of the various titles & publication dates)    http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/drewlist.html

(guide to the Grosset & Dunlap editions)    http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/formats.html

   
To clarify whether a 'Nancy Drew book' is from the "Nancy Drew Mystery Stories" series that I am trying to assemble, I now focus on copyright dates, in addition to the relevant title+book number spec, & whether the picture cover (of the yellow hardcover) is in matte format, & not glossy, & does not have a flashlight symbol (further confirmation of the matte vs. glossy aspect, given that only the glossy version has a flashlight symbol [on the picture cover & spine]).

I hope that helps...

There are major changes in storyline for at least one of the books. The Broken Locket is a completely different story in the older blue heather edition than in the later yellow ones.

Some of the changes were made out of sensitivity to people that might have been looked down on at the time they were written. While I think that political correctness has been taken to a ridiculous extreme in the past few years, I'm thankful that those ignorant attitudes from the past are no longer acceptable today.