Intrepid detective Nancy Drew returns. Once again, she faces to puzzling mysteries simultaneously. The first concerns a valuable collection of rare books that Mrs. Horace Merriam commissioned an art dealer to sell that may be too good to be true. The second mystery revolves around the baffling theft of a beautiful marble statue. To solve both mysteries, the famous young detective disguises herself and assumes a false identity. Despite these precautions, danger stalks Nancy’s every move. An attempted kidnapping, a nearly disastrous sailboat collision, and an encounter with a dishonest sculptor are just a few of the exciting challenges that Nancy is faced with as she gathers evidence against a clever ring of art thieves.
The Whispering Statue is the fourteenth volume of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. Consisting of 175 volumes published between 1930-2003, the Nancy Drew books were commissioned by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer to be the female counterpart to the Hardy Boys. Although all the Nancy Drew novels are attributed to the writer, a Carolyn Keene, the series was in fact written by a collection of twenty-eight ghostwriters. The Whispering Statue was penned by Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson penned twenty-three of the first thirty Nancy Drews. She has been credited with the creation of Nancy’s plucky, adventuresome personality, and is considered by many lovers and collectors as the “truest” of all of Nancy’s ghostwriters.
It should be noted that the 1970 edition of The Whispering Statue differs significantly from the original 1937 version and should be regarded as a revision rather than a simple reprinting.
- Title: The Whispering Statue
- Author: Carolyn Keene
- Ghostwriter: Mildred Wirt Benson
- Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
- Year: 1937
- Series: Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (No. 14)
- Hardcover
- First Edition
- Length: 217pp
- Dimensions: 5” x 7.5”
- Condition: The dustjacket is intact. The colors are vibrant, but the cover itself is worn, cracking, and torn in some places. The blue cloth covered boards are in good condition but with some shelf wear. The binding is tight, and the pages are clean--no tears, folds, or extraneous marks. The endpapers are illustrated. There is an inscription on the inside of the front flap of the dustjacket: "Got from January 25--Sometime in February. Date not known. Bought with money from my birthday. (1961) ($1 + 4 c tax)".