Prager made an observation about the first Nancy Drew book and the first Dana Girls book that I had never before noticed. The Dana Girls series was created soon after the early success of the Nancy Drew series. The Syndicate created the Dana Girls as an imitator of the Nancy Drew series. In some ways, the Dana Girls series is more like the Hardy Boys series than it is like Nancy Drew. The Dana sisters are female counterparts to the Hardy brothers.
Prager pointed out a connection between the opening of the first Nancy Drew book and the title of the first Dana Girls book. This is how the first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock, opens:
"It would be a shame if all that money went to the Tophams! They will fly higher than ever!"Arthur Prager wrote:
Nancy Drew, a pretty girl of sixteen, leaned over the library table and addressed her father who sat reading a newspaper by the study lamp.
Carson Drew, a noted criminal and mystery-case lawyer, known far and wide for his work as a former district attorney, looked up from his evening paper and smiled indulgently upon his only daughter. Now, as he gave her his respectful attention, he was not particularly concerned with the Richard Topham family but rather with the rich glow of the lamp upon Nancy's curly golden bob.
The first title of the [Dana Girls'] first book, By the Light of the Study Lamp, recalls the first paragraph of the first Nancy book. Remember the Tophams and how Nancy addressed her father on the subject of their inheritance as he sat reading by the study lamp?Not only did Carson Drew read "by the study lamp," he noticed the "glow of the lamp" upon Nancy's hair. From that came the title, By the Light of the Study Lamp. Of course it could have been just a coincidence, but it is interesting nonetheless.
3 comments:
Maybe Stratemeyer liked that turn of phrase, and the picture it conjured, when he read it in Wirt's manuscript of the first Nancy Drew book, and he may have made a mental note to himself to use it sometime for a title. Since he was constantly generating story lines for several series books, I imagine he grabbed ideas from everywhere!
What an interesting point between the first ND book and the first DG books. I have all the white hardback DG books, but don't have all the earlier editions.
And though most people don't seem to like the thin hardcover Trixie Belden books, I love those editions. The lurid early '70s style covers with Trixie in both the foreground and the background look great, except for their tendency to fall apart. I've replaced most of mine that were falling apart, except for the Mystery of the Emeralds.
I love these kinds of observations.
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