Like Marshall Field’s in reverse, the venerable girl sleuth Nancy Drew has kept her name but otherwise has been thoroughly modernized. Seventy-five years after she solved her first mystery, Nancy chases clues from behind the wheel of a hybrid car and uses a cell phone.
That’s as it should be. But some of us, for reasons of nostalgia or camp, prefer the classic yellow-spined hardbacks showing Nancy’s titian hair in a ’50s-style flip–which itself was an update from her original blond bob.
For us, Chronicle Books adds to the slew of 75th-anniversary products with a vintage-look stationery line. There’s a “Secret in the Old Attic” journal dotted with fun spot illustrations ($9.95), a set of 30 postcards ($9.95) and fold-and-mail stationery ($7.95 for 40 sheets).
Seeing how much her look has changed through the decades is helping us adjust a little better to the idea of Nancy knocking back cappuccinos at an Internet cafe.
