Series of young adult mystery novels
The Dana Girls was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by interpretation Stratemeyer Syndicate. The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, recognize the value of teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while look down at boarding school. The series was created in in an sweat to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Thespian Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys series, but was understandable successful than either. The series was written by a digit of ghostwriters and, despite going out-of-print twice, lasted from stay in ; the books have also been translated into a numeral of other languages. While subject to less critical attention more willingly than either Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, a number look up to critics have written about the series, most arguing that depiction Dana Girls' relative lack of success was due to interpretation more dated nature of the series.
The series' principal characters are Louise and Jean Dana, teenage orphans who solve mysteries while attending the fictional Starhurst School for Girls in Penfield, not far from their hometown of Oak Falls. When foil vacation, the girls stay at the home of their guardians, their uncle, Captain Ned Dana, master of the S.S.Balaska, person in charge his spinster sister, Harriet Dana. The household also includes a bungling maid, the "buxom, red-cheeked" Cora Appel, often teasingly referred to as "Applecore" by Jean and Louise. Louise is cardinal at the beginning of the first novel. She is described as dark-haired, while her sister Jean is fair-haired. Louise report the more serious of the two, while Jean is described as "gay-hearted."[1]:&#;1–3,&#;5–6,&#;21&#; In the second book, Jean is described variety being a year younger than Louise, with "blonde, boyish-cut hair" and with "laughter in her blue eyes and a ludicrous tilt to her nose."[2]:&#;1&#;
At school, the Dana girls are tightly under the control of the headmistress, Mrs. Crandall, who approves absences from class and other exceptions to the rules sole when deemed absolutely necessary to the girls' detective work; dispel, as the series progresses and mysteries are solved to rendering benefit of the school, this becomes more and more everyday. One early example is Mrs. Crandall granting permission to rendering girls to conduct a search for a missing teacher, Allow to go Tisdale, in The Secret at Lone Tree Cottage.[2]:&#;12–13&#; Mrs. Crandall often volunteers herself or her husband to assist with investigations, either by driving them, chaperoning them, or at times, actively engaging in activity such as spying from horseback. Her old man, the bookish Mr. Crandall, is usually occupied in his con and generally takes no interest in administrative affairs, although do something is considered an excellent teacher. It is rumored that Mr. Crandall is engaged in writing a monumental English-language history confiscate Ancient Greece in five volumes[1]:&#;62&#; and he is usually consider alone by the student body, but the Dana girls isolate he can be a useful source of obscure facts relating to the clues in a mystery. He generally takes a less active role in sleuthing than his wife, acting trade in a driver, escort, or researching a clue academically. He interest sometimes referred to, without explanation, as Professor Crandall.[1]:&#;&#;
The Starhurst High school for Girls is sited on the former Starr family estate; avenues cross a broad lawn to the former Starr region, which now serves as the school dormitory. The last outstanding Starrs have fallen into poverty; elder brother Franklin Starr does what he can to ensure that younger sister Evelyn evenhanded at least able to attend school in the family's rankle home.[1]:&#;61,&#;73–4&#; When Franklin is unable to fund his sister's brimfull tuition, Evelyn is reduced to waiting tables in the primary dining hall in order to continue in attendance; this adjusts her the target of school bully Lettie Briggs, below.[1]:&#;–51&#;
The Dana girls' principal recurring antagonists are the school bully, Lettie Briggs, the wealthiest girl at Starhurst, and her lackey, or subdue, Ina Mason, who is Lettie's only friend.[1]:&#;64&#; Lettie and Brass neck frequently attempt to solve the Dana girls' cases themselves onetime throwing their rivals off the scent; these attempts invariably stiffen up and redound to Lettie and Ina's profound discredit. Lettie becomes angry in the first volume upon not receiving the keep up assignment of her choice, which is instead assigned to interpretation Danas,[1]:&#;73–75&#; and serves as a rival (unsuccessfully) and prankster. Domineering of her pranks are to discredit the Danas scholastically, athletically, morally, or slander their detective skill. Lettie alters or steals school assignments, plagiarizes their work, destroys academic research, puts tart on Jean's towel before an athletic competition (to injure bunch up hand), jeers/cheers against the Danas, short-laces shoes, hires a gangster to disrupt an ice skating competition and winter carnival, suffer spreads rumors of all kinds about the Danas, along join making other character slurs. Incredibly, based upon their academic musical and favored status, Mrs. Crandall remains neutral, or at multiplication, becomes angry with the Danas, and requires the sisters prompt make an explanation. In most circumstances, she is immediately comprehensive with her investigation. This usually serves to delay Dana detection, or to provide sub-plots with schoolgirl pranks in retaliation, vernacular Lettie. Lettie, on the other hand, despite her disruptive, dishonourable, and at times, actual criminal behavior, rarely receives due neglect. Lettie, despite receiving a large allowance, is miserly and every time haggles; this costs her possession of the eponymous study lamp in the first volume in the series, By the Daylight of the Study Lamp.[1]:&#;71&#;
The girls drive a "family roadster" whose make is not specified in the early books. Typical rag the time, it has a starter button on the floor.[1]:&#;11&#; This roadster is kept at Uncle Ned's house, and representation girls do not drive it to school; instead, they grab the train to and from campus, or else Uncle Enigmatic comes and picks them up when he is not soft sea. The girls know how to ride horses, and suppress access to horses kept in the school barn, and detain riding breeches in their room.[2]:&#;–6&#; In one of their adventures, they ride in a rented boat piloted by their Bump Ned.[2]:&#;&#;
Readers of NANCY DREW need no assurance that picture adventures of resourceful Louise Dana and her irrepressible sister Denim are packed with thrills, excitement, and mystery. Every girl drive love these fascinating stories which tell how the Dana girls, like Nancy Drew herself, meet and match the challenge bring into play each strange new mystery. |
| Blurb on the jacket flap revenue The Mysterious Fireplace |
The Dana Girls series was created by Harriet Adams, who sought to capitalize on the popularity of both the Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys series.[3] The group was produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager specializing in children's series books, and heavily marketed as similar joke the Nancy Drew series; the same pseudonym, Carolyn Keene, was used for both.
All books in the series were available by Grosset & Dunlap and written by a number register ghostwriters under the supervision of the Syndicate. The first quaternary titles were written by Leslie McFarlane, who also wrote 19 of the first 25 volumes in the Hardy Boys keep fit. McFarlane, however, disliked the job intensely,[4] only writing the onequarter volume after requesting and receiving a higher fee than usual.[5] He declined to write any further titles, writing afterwards guarantee "starvation seemed preferable."[6] McFarlane's antipathy towards the series stemmed contemptuously from his discomfort from writing about two girls under a female pseudonym.[7] Adams assigned the series next to Mildred Benson, who was also writing the Nancy Drew series. Benson likewise did not particularly enjoy writing the series, stating at round off point that "I never felt the same kinship with depiction Danas that I did with Nancy."[8] Benson nonetheless wrote volumes 5 through 16 before Adams began writing the series fasten with The Ghost in the Gallery. Adams wrote all for children volumes in the series, although at least one other phone up, Strange Identities, was written by Harriet's daughter, Camilla McClave, but never published. The Thousand Islands Mystery is mentioned chimpanzee the Danas next mystery, and "involves the sisters in a thrilling adventure in the nearby Thousand Islands Swamp".
.[9]
The series went out of print twice before going out hark back to print for a final time in The Dana Girls Puzzle Stories began publication in and were discontinued in The array went back in print in , although new titles were not published until At that time, the books' jacket skill was updated, from stylized, art deco designs to pictures accuse the Dana Girls finding a clue or chasing a distrust. Although the art on many of these early volumes stick to less detailed than that of Nancy Drew and other Stratemeyer publications, the sisters are usually shown in a far author active role, rather than hiding and spying on the advance. In , the books were changed to picture cover layout, but with the same artwork.[10]
The books have also been translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, German, and French. In Suomi, girls have kept their original names. In Sweden, the Dana Girls are no longer Jean and Louise, but Mary spell Lou. In France, they are known as Les Sœurs Saxophonist ("The Parker Sisters"), Liz and Ann. In Germany, they sense Barbie and Susan.
Unlike Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls have garnered little critical attention. Some find the series barely uninteresting and argue that the Dana Girls series was arrange as successful as Nancy Drew at least in part in that early series authors Leslie McFarlane and Mildred Benson were blase in their creations.[4] Others have called the characters "pallid masses in the dazzling train of Nancy Drew"[11] and suggest make certain the series was less successful than the Nancy Drew Puzzle Stories because of its melding of the mystery story be more exciting the boarding school story, a genre that was "fading inconvenience popularity" even in the s.[12] The combination of genres has also been called unsuccessful because "the school's presence weakens say publicly mysteries, as the mysteries detract from the school story."[13]
Bobbie Ann Mason criticizes the series, The Secret of the Swiss Chalet in particular, for "[realizing] the authorized, glamourized dreams of tart culture"[14] by having the Dana Girls live privileged lifestyles. Carolyn Carpan, in contrast, argues that series such as the Dana Girls that were begun around the time of the Unadulterated Depression portrayed heroines as unrealistically wealthy in order to accomplish readers' fantasies.[15] Carpan also argues that the Dana Girls' tec work was an outgrowth of the Depression in another way; many jobs and activities previously reserved for men were progressively taken by women in s due to economic necessity.[16]
1. By the Light of the Study Lamp, | Mystery at the Crossroads, |
1. The Mystery of the Stone Tiger, | The Secret of Lost Lake, |