Nancy Drew is a popular mystery series that first started in 1930 with the book The Secret of Old Clock. There are a total of 175 books in the series and they have been published till 2003. The series was written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keen and the character of Nancy Drew was created by Edward Stratemeyer, who is also responsible for other classics such as The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, The Rover Boys, and so on.
The series also features multiple spins off as well as the revised stories published after the last book in the series, Ware-wolf in a Winter Wonderland which was published in 2003.
About the series and the main character:-
Nancy Drew is the main character of the series. She is a grad student who lives with her father, an attorney, and their housekeeper at her Home Town River Heights. She is very smart and often helps people to solve mysteries and due to this, she is very popular abroad as well. From time to time, Nancy Drew summoned to foreign land to solve the mysteries. Although she doesn’t take any sort of payment.
Her character developed over the years and she becomes smarter and faces bigger mysteries. And everyone can’t seem to get enough of her and the way she can solve any mystery in the world.
Since there are several books in the series, it’s a little overwhelming to pick the books in chronological order. So here we are sharing a list of Nancy Drew books in the order so that you can read the series from the first book till the last one in its chronological order.
Contents
- 1 Nancy Drew books
- 1.1 1. The Secret of Old Clock
- 1.2 2. The Hidden Staircase
- 1.3 3. The Bungalow Mystery
- 1.4 4. The Mystery at Lilac Inn
- 1.5 5. The Secret of the Shadow Ranch
- 1.6 6. The Secret of Red Gate Farm
- 1.7 7. The Clue in the Diary
- 1.8 8. Nancy’s Mysterious Letter
- 1.9 9. The Sign of a Twisted Candles
- 1.10 10. The password to Larkspur Lane
- 1.11 11. The Clue of the Broken Locket
- 1.12 12. The Message in the Hollow Oak
- 1.13 13. The Mystery of the Ivory Charm
- 1.14 14. The Whispering Statue
- 1.15 15. The Haunted Bridge
- 1.16 Conclusion
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Nancy Drew books
1. The Secret of Old Clock
This is the first book in the Nancy Drew Mystery series and it was published in the year 1930. We are first introduced to the character of Nancy Drew in this book, she is a high school graduate who is 16 years old (although her age changed to 18 years in the later books).The story starts with the death of a wealthy man named Josiah Crowley. Surprisingly his will says that his inheritance goes to the Topham Family instead of his close relatives or friends. Something seems suspicious to Nancy and she decided to take the matter into her own hands.This thrilling adventure of Nancy tells us how brilliant she is and what she can do, it’s fascinating how she finds out the leads in this case and uncovers the truth about the will of a wealthy dead man!
2. The Hidden Staircase
Nancy Drew is anxious and stressed as her father has been threatened by Nathan Gombert. Gombert feels cheated after he sells a piece of land for a railroad bridge.Apart from this, Nancy has been invited by the Turnbull sisters Rosemary and Florette because precious things are disappearing from their house even though it’s locked all the time. With her power of deduction and intelligence, Nancy drew does all in her power to solve the mystery and handle the present situation with her family.
3. The Bungalow Mystery
The Bungalow Mystery is the third book in the Nancy Drew Mystery series and this one is also a popular story and counted as one of the best adventures of Nancy.Nancy is trying to help her friend to come out of a difficult situation but little did she know an adventure and a whole new set of problems and mysteries waiting for her. She is around a deserted Bungalow and something just didn’t feel right to her. Whatever there is, it surely has the power to harm Nancy and her friend. Nancy can save herself from this using her mind and the power of deduction.
4. The Mystery at Lilac Inn
In The Mystery at Lilac Inn, Nancy Drew is helping out her friend Emily Crandell whose heirloom jewel has been stolen. This is all because Emily’s guardian takes the jewel out of the box and put it in her purse and it was stolen while they were distracted by a car crash.But this is going to be easy as the thief is too smart and he may harm Nancy to get the jewel and not get caught. Will she be able to save herself and uncover the mystery of the stolen jewel?
5. The Secret of the Shadow Ranch
The next volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery series is The Secret of the Shadow Ranch! Nancy Drew finally able to catch a break and spend the holidays in Phoenix, Arizona! But with her luck, here too she finds herself in the middle of a baffling mystery that needed to be solved sooner.This time the mystery is about a phantom horse who haunts the ranch and further damage to the ranch is down by an unknown enemy. According to local people, a ghost animal is behind all this and there is a curse of Dirk Valentine, the romantic outlaw who was killed many years ago at Shadow Ranch.Nancy and her friends are now in search of a hidden treasure which can solve the mystery of ghost animal and the curse. Nancy is using her cleaver deduction but only to find out some dangerous developments which might suggest there is much bigger than just an animal ghost and curse in this town!
6. The Secret of Red Gate Farm
The Secret of Red Gate Farm features one of the biggest mystery for Nancy Drew till now as.Bess, one of Nancy’s friends, bought an expensive bottle of perfume. What seems like a normal thing to buy and use daily has now turned into the biggest mystery of their life. Nancy and her friends are sure that this bottle of perfume is connected to many secrets including conspiracies, a cult, and a ring of counterfeiters!It would be interesting to see how Nancy and her friends solve the mystery and find the truth about the bottle and the secrets related to it.
7. The Clue in the Diary
Nancy and her friends are witnessing a building on fire, fearing there might be people in the building they run to rescue. Instead of people asking for their help all they find is a mystery awaiting them. And there the first clue is an anonymous diary.What will happen next? And who’s diary it is? If someone is planning a trip for Nancy and her friends or its just a mere accident? There are so many questions that need to be answered and only one way to find it- reading the next Nancy Drew book!
8. Nancy’s Mysterious Letter
Mysteries and Nancy are two perfect couples in this whole world, no matter where Nancy is, some mysteries are always gonna be there for her to solve and this time the mystery is a letter!A letter has been written in name of Nancy and when she opens it she finds out it’s a letter from England and suggests that Nancy is their heiress. It doesn’t take much time for Nancy to find out that the letter has been written to another person who’s name is also Nancy Drew!But the question is who is this other Nancy Drew? And why is she recovering her letter? Is she safe or in danger? With her curiosity, Nancy decides to uncover the truth about the letter and the people behind it.
9. The Sign of a Twisted Candles
In this book, Nancy is up for a mystery that might cost her friendship with Bess and George and she must use her power of diplomacy and deduction to resolve the issues.When Bess and George come to Nancy asking her for help for their granduncle, who might be a prisoner in his mansion. While Nancy finds out more about the case and the situation, she discovers some shocking information about her. There is so much tension going on between two families and friends, meanwhile, the sign of twisted candles is the only thing that can help Nancy to solve the growing feud!
10. The password to Larkspur Lane
The next book in the Nancy Drew series is Password to the Larkspur Lane. This time Nancy is dealing with not one but two mysteries at a time. The first one is about an old woman who might be held a prisoner in a mansion and Nancy must save her before anything happens to her.The second mystery comes from her friend Helen who wants her to help her grandparents. Her grandparents see a blue fire that appears after dark in the woods, outside their home at lonely Sylvan Lake.Are the two mysteries connected? Or she is just thinking too much? Will she be able to solve both the mysteries simultaneously? Just read the next Nancy Drew book to find out!
11. The Clue of the Broken Locket
In this book, Nancy and her friends are chilling at Misty Lake and all they want is to have a good time without any drama around them. And just when they thought they can have some break from all the mystery cases, a red-haired lady named Cecily Curtis ask Nancy for her help to solve two mysteries.The first one is about her fiance who is a singer and he thinks that his partners are cheating on him for royalty payments. Another mystery involves the hidden family treasure from the civil war era. And the oy clue to the above two mysteries is half of a gold locket!
12. The Message in the Hollow Oak
The Message in the Hollow Oak is all about testing Nancy and her ability to solve mysteries. It’s no secret that Nancy is a brilliant detective and she has solved many unbelievable cases in her life till now and everyone is in awe of the young detective. But now that she has become popular, not everyone believes that anyone can be this smart at this young age and especially if they don’t know her.A team of professional detectives has challenged Nancy to solve a mystery. There is an old hollow tree that has a secret message and that’s what Nancy is supposed to find out. Will she able to prove herself in front of professional detectives or she will make herself a fool?
13. The Mystery of the Ivory Charm
The Mystery of the Ivory Charm is the next Nancy Drew book in order. For a long time now people have been believing that wearing an elephant’s ivory will prevent them from harm and they will be protected from any possible harm that can occur to her. Now Nancy has been asked to prove this theory and digs up a little bit more about this as a royal family might be involved in all this and somewhere someone is involved in an illegal animal scheme.
14. The Whispering Statue
In The Whispering Statue, Nancy is again facing two mysteries at once. One about the theft of an invaluable statue and the other is about a rare collection of books and the dealer who was responsible to see these books! Both of them seem impossible to crack but Nancy must do her job and solve the mysteries.
15. The Haunted Bridge
When Nancy was helping her father to solve a mystery about jewel thieves, she also found another mystery waiting for her, the mystery of a Haunted Bridge! The fact that Nancy is injured already and the ongoing case can cause her more troubles, makes this mystery more adventurous for its readers!
Conclusion
So these are the Nancy Drew books in the order that you need to know about. Although people often pick any book in the series can read them as standalone but it’s still worth reading the books from the starting to know the storyline, theme, and character development of the books.We have done our job of introducing the Nancy Drew Books in the order and we hope you found our article helpful. Thank you for visiting our page and keep coming for more such articles in the future as well.