The Fierceness of 1940s Nancy
Author: Carolyn Keene
In the 1940s version of The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk, Nancy, Bess, and George are planning to take an exclusive girl’s school tour trip to South America. In preparation for the trip, Carson Drew has gifted Nancy a beautiful brass bound trunk with her initials carved into them. But this trunk ends up being the catalyst for many different problems – even attracting armed thieves into the Drew’s home.
Meanwhile, one of the students’ mothers, Mrs. Joslin, discovers that Nancy will be present for the trip and demands that the gumshoe be removed. She doesn’t want her delicate daughter, Nestralda, to be associated with such unwomanly persons! Everything comes to a head, of course, and Nancy slowly untangles a ring of crime and broken hearts all while planning for her cruise.
1940s Nancy is honestly a lot more fun than the tamed-down 1960s and 1970s version. Nancy here isn’t afraid to flout social convention and stand up for herself, and she has a bit more edge to both her speaking and her actions. This is a Nancy who can get mad – who doesn’t clutch pearls and only think of dresses. This Nancy might be, dare I say it, a bit dangerous. I quite love it!
Not to say that Nancy isn’t still a good girl and a girly girly. She’s just got some teeth here, and we can see her more as the daring detective than the kind-hearted girl who sometimes blunders into the answers to mysteries, all while making sure that not a single curl is out of place.
The mystery here is honestly just so-so. What I really liked was seeing the older version of Nancy, which was mostly just a coincidence. I bought the entire set of Nancy Drew’s off of eBay. Most of them are the Flashlight version (the ones with the yellow covers that went through the 60s and 70s), but some are the older versions. I tend to like original Nancy a lot better. She even makes some mistakes. She is almost human – although of course she is still skilled at everything and this family sure seems to have some money – cruise trips and convertibles and live-in house keepers and such.
The mystery here takes quite a while to get going, and it’s one of the weaker ones. Mrs. Joslin is the main antagonist, and Nancy spends much of the book trying to figure out what this woman is hiding and fighting off various schemes to keep her landed. She also gets involved in a questionable attempt by her father to thwart a young couple’s elopement, since the father’s friend wants his daughter to marry for money and not love. Nancy helps her dad but has a few sharp words to say about the arrangement that lets us know what she thinks of this kind of meddling.
Eventually, the trunk is stolen, found, stolen, found, stolen, found . . . . and we run into Nestralda, who becomes friends with Nancy and helps unlock what is really going on. The police, as usual, bumble in at the last moment and Nancy gives them the most circumstantial heresy I’ve ever heard, producing the stolen goods herself. The police, of course, believe her, and everything is neatly swept away. How any of these cases survive court is beyond me . . . Nancy destroys evidence and probable cause quite casually, but fortunately she is untouchable, being the great Carson Drew’s daughter. We shake our heads, we laugh, we pick up the next in the series. We know that nothing really goes ill for Nancy and everything magically falls in place.
The plot here honestly didn’t need to be so complicated or overwrought, but as I said, 1940s Nancy is a lot more fun, and I quite enjoyed how she handled the sharp-tongued Mrs. Joslin. How The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk would stand up to other 40s Nancy adventures I don’t know. I suspect because of the weaker story it would be lower down the list, but it was my first encounter, and I found old-school Nancy far more refreshing and human. Recommended. Now onto The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion, which I’ve been quite eager to read for a while.
– Frances Carden
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Work Your Way Through the Nancy Drew Series with Me:
1) The Secret of the Old Clock
6) The Secret of Red Gate Farm
9) The Sign of the Twisted Candles
10) The Password to Larkspur Lane
11) The Clue of the Broken Locket
12) The Message in the Hollow Oak
13) The Mystery of the Ivory Charm
16) The Clue of the Tapping Heels
17) The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk (you are here)
18) Next Up: The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion
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