Over the decades the character has evolved in response to changes in American culture and tastes. Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.
The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth.
