Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 30, 2012

Nancy Drew is a fictional character in various mystery fiction series. She was created by Edward Stratemeyer and first appeared in 1930. The books have been ghostwritten by a number of authors and are published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Over the decades the character has evolved in response to changes in American culture and tastes. In the 1980s a new series was created, The Nancy Drew Files, which featured an older and more professional Nancy as well as romantic plots. In 2004 the original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, begun in 1930, was ended and a new series, Girl Detective, was launched. Illustrations of the character have also evolved over time to reflect the Nancy Drew type in contemporary terms. Through all these changes, the character has proved continuously popular worldwide: at least 80 million copies of the books have been sold, and they have been translated into more than 45 languages. A cultural icon, Nancy Drew has been cited as a formative influence by a number of women. Feminist literary critics have analyzed the character's enduring appeal, arguing variously that Nancy Drew is a mythic hero, an expression of wish fulfillment, or an embodiment of contradictory ideas about femininity. (more...)

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