Eighteen years old. Amateur by title, legend by record.
Nancy Drew is the daughter of attorney Carson Drew, raised in the quiet town of River Heights — quiet, that is, until she starts asking questions. Since her debut in The Secret of the Old Clock in 1930, she has become the most famous amateur sleuth in fiction: brilliant, independent, and impossible to intimidate.
With her closest friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne, and a phone line to Ned Nickerson when things get rough, Nancy travels the world chasing cases the police call unsolvable — from haunted mansions and sunken ships to secrets buried under old family estates.
She has been translated into dozens of languages, adapted for film and television, and cited as a formative influence by Supreme Court justices, astronauts, and writers alike. Not bad for an “amateur.”
Nearly a century of mysteries
The Secret of the Old Clock
Publisher Edward Stratemeyer conceives a girl detective; journalist Mildred Wirt Benson writes the first stories under the shared pen name Carolyn Keene. Nancy is an instant sensation.
The classic 56
The original Mystery Stories are revised and extended into the canonical yellow-spine hardcovers — the editions generations of readers grew up with.
The Nancy Drew Files
A new paperback line brings older readers longer, more suspenseful cases — proof that Nancy grows with her audience.
Secrets Can Kill
HeR Interactive releases the first Nancy Drew computer game. For the first time, fans don’t follow the investigation — they run it.
Girl Detective & beyond
First-person narration arrives with the Girl Detective series, later followed by the Nancy Drew Diaries — modern cases for modern readers.
The mystery continues
With Mystery of the Seven Keys and new books arriving every year, Nancy’s casebook keeps growing — nearly a century after her first clue.
Why she never fails
Sharp observation
Nothing escapes her. A misplaced letter, a nervous glance, a fresh scratch on an old lock — Nancy reads rooms the way others read books.
Puzzle mastery
Ciphers, riddles, hidden mechanisms and secret passages. Every case is a chain of puzzles, and she never leaves one unsolved.
Fearless curiosity
Haunted mansions, abandoned theme parks, foggy castles at midnight. Where everyone else turns back, Nancy takes out her flashlight.
Relentless resolve
Warnings, threats, dead ends — nothing stops her. When Nancy Drew takes a case, the mystery is as good as solved.
On the page
Written under the collective pen name Carolyn Keene, the Nancy Drew books span seven major series — from the classic Mystery Stories to the Files, Girl Detective, and today's Diaries — with more than 70 million copies sold and new titles still arriving every year. Whether you want the vintage yellow-spine hardcovers or a modern first-person mystery, there's a shelf for you.
On the screen
Since 1998, HeR Interactive has turned her cases into acclaimed point-and-click adventures — over thirty of them, from Secrets Can Kill to Mystery of the Seven Keys. You don't watch Nancy solve the case — you are Nancy: interrogating suspects, picking locks, decoding ciphers, and piecing together the truth yourself.
Where it all began
The founding classics
Take the case yourself
Your first case awaits
Ready to solve your first mystery?
Over thirty games and a whole library of cases are waiting. Grab your flashlight — and pick your way in.