Kay Tracey
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The Kay Tracey Mysteries were published under the name Frances K. Judd, a house
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
of the
Stratemeyer Syndicate The Stratemeyer Syndicate was an American publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. It pu ...
, a
book packager Book packaging (or book producing) is a publishing activity in which a publishing company outsources the myriad tasks involved in putting together a book—writing, researching, editing, illustrating, and even printing—to an outside company calle ...
. The series was conceived as a response to the popularity of the
Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudo ...
Mystery Stories and likewise features a
teenage Adolescence () is a transitional stage of human physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with ...
girl detective ''Nancy Drew: Girl Detective'' is a 2004–2012 book series which replaced the long-running Nancy Drew mystery series. This new series is written in first person narration, from Nancy's point of view, and features updated versions of the main Na ...
. While the original entries in the series lasted only from 1934 to 1942, the books were updated, revised, and have been re-issued numerous times, most recently by
Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sidney B. K ...
in the 1980s, and have been translated into
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and
French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...
. Many critics see Kay Tracey as markedly inferior to Nancy Drew, but some find the series to be significant as one of a number of series that provided girls with a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
role model prior to
third-wave feminism Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth-wave feminism, fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second-wave feminism, second wave, Generation X, Gen X ...
.


Character

Kay Tracey is a 16-year-old amateur
sleuth Sleuth may refer to: *Detective *Sleuth, collective noun for a group of bears Computing *The Sleuth Kit, a collection of forensic analysis software *SLEUTH assembler language for the UNIVAC 1107 Entertainment and media *Cloo Cloo, formerly k ...
who lives with her mother and her older cousin Bill, a lawyer, in the fictional town of Brantwood. Kay is depicted as unfailingly intelligent and courageous; she lives in "a constant shower of praise." Unlike
Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudo ...
, the character on whom Kay Tracey was modeled, Kay is a student in Carmont
High School A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
. Like the
Dana Girls ''The Dana Girls'' was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, are teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while at boarding school. The series wa ...
, fictional sister sleuths created by the
Stratemeyer Syndicate The Stratemeyer Syndicate was an American publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. It pu ...
around the same time as Kay Tracey, Kay deals continually with a jealous schoolmate, Ethel Eaton, who often interferes in Kay's cases. Kay is often aided in solving mysteries by her two best friends, twins Wilma and Betty Worth, and occasionally her boyfriend, Ronald Earle.


Series history

Written by four women from 1934 to 1942, the Kay Tracey Mystery Stories were created in order to capitalize on the success of the
Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudo ...
Mystery Stories. The series has been reprinted numerous times, often with changes in artwork, format, and series numbering. The series was most recently re-issued in the 1980s.Axe (2000), 118.


Authorship

The series was created and supervised by
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (December 12, 1892 – March 27, 1982) was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many book ...
, with the actual stories being written by four women over the series' history: Elizabeth Mildred Duffield Ward,
Mildred Wirt Benson Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (July 10, 1905 – May 28, 2002) was an American journalist and writer of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under ...
, Edna Stratemeyer Squier (Adams's sister), and Anna Perot Rose Wright.Keeline. Ward was responsible for the first two titles in the series; volumes three through 12 as well as volume 14 were written by Benson. Wright wrote the last four volumes. While Squier contributed only one volume, ''The Forbidden Tower'' (later dropped from the series), she wrote the plot outlines for nearly all the volumes in the series. Adams and Squier exercised tight control over the series, ensuring that all outlines were extremely detailed. At one point Benson cited this level of detail as a reason for the abrupt writing style of some of the titles, writing to Adams that "I do think that the last Kay Tracey story had a slightly hurried and abrupt tone, although I spent fully as much time and thought on the manuscript as usual.... Recent plots seem to be running somewhat long on detail, and I had difficulty in getting all of the scenes into the story even by cutting some of them short." Adams and Squier continued, however, to supervise every detail of the books; in particular, they expressed concern over the way that Benson characterized the title heroine and her friends. As Squier wrote to Benson at one point, "Kay and her chums at times speak too sarcastically and audaciously for growing girls. The story has a boyish ring throughout which we will temper to conform to more girlish ideals."


Publication history

The Kay Tracey Mystery Stories have been reprinted multiple times in a number of different formats and with different artwork. The series was originally published by Cupples & Leon. These editions featured a glossy frontispiece and a full color illustration on a yellow
dustjacket The dust jacket (sometimes book jacket, dust wrapper or dust cover) of a book is the detachable outer cover, usually made of paper and printed with text and illustrations. This outer cover has folded flaps that hold it to the front and back book ...
. Later runs of the dustjackets were red and blue as well as yellow. The series was later updated and revised, first in 1951 and 1952 by Doubleday's Garden City Books, although the only title to be substantially re-worked was the first volume, ''The Secret of the Red Scarf.'' During this time, wrap-around style dust jackets, that is, jackets where the cover art continued over to the spine, in full-color, were introduced. A new frontispiece in pen-and-ink was included. A spine symbol of Kay, apparently cheering, was introduced on the jackets, as was a binding symbol on the book spine, which was a picture of Kay peeking from behind a curtain. The volumes were slightly revised in most cases, mainly to updated slightly outmoded vernacular, and to re-sequence the books. Three titles – ''The Forbidden Tower'', ''The Mystery of the Swaying Curtains'', and ''The Shadow on the Door'' – were dropped from the series for reasons which are unclear. The series was re-issued in
digest size Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine, but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately . It is also a and format, similar to the size of a DVD case. These sizes evolved from the printing ...
paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, ...
s by Doubleday/Books, Inc. in the late 1950s, and the titles were again re-sequenced. From 1960 to 1964, eight titles were released by Berkley Medallion/Berkley Highland in paperback. Six books were released in 1978 by Lamplight in picture cover format with artwork very similar to the Garden City books. In the 1980s, Bantam re-issued six of the titles in the series (re-numbered again), and at least seven titles were printed in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
in 1984, again with new artwork.


Titles

The Kay Tracey Mystery Stories were renumbered repeatedly; below is a complete list of volumes in original publication order with the original numbering by Cupples & Leon. A 19th and 20th titles were planned for the series, but never came to fruition, as the series was canceled in 1942. * 1. ''The Secret of the Red Scarf'', 1934 * 2. ''The Strange Echo'', 1934 * 3. ''The Mystery of the Swaying Curtains'', 1935 * 4. ''The Shadow on the Door'', 1935 * 5. ''The Six-Fingered Glove Mystery'', 1936 * 6. ''The Green Cameo Mystery'', 1936 * 7. ''The Secret at the Windmill'', 1937 * 8. ''Beneath the Crimson Briar Bush'', 1937 * 9. ''The Message in the Sand Dunes'', 1938 * 10. ''The Murmuring Portrait'', 1938 * 11. ''When the Key Turned'', 1939 * 12. ''In the Sunken Garden'', 1939 * 13. ''The Forbidden Tower'', 1940 * 14. ''The Sacred Feather'', 1940 * 15. ''The Lone Footprint'', 1941 * 16. ''The Double Disguise'', 1941 * 17. ''The Mansion of Secrets'', 1942 * 18. ''The Mysterious Neighbors'', 1942 * 19. ''The Haunted Lighthouse'', Unpublished * 20. ''The Curious Quest'', Unpublished


Critical assessment

While the Kay Tracey books were intended to be similar to the
Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudo ...
series, Kay Tracey was never as popular a character as Nancy Drew. Various critics have attempted to explain how a series so superficially similar should have been so much less successful. Some commentators have cited the stories themselves and the style in which they were written as a reason for the series' comparative lack of success. The series is written at a much more break-neck pace than other series books of the time; their style has been called "formula-writing at its most flaccid." Others have compared the series to
comic books A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
, arguing that the stories are "lurid, but too cartoonish to be frightening." Others have pointed to the character of Kay Tracey herself. The character has been described as much less focused than Nancy Drew on rational detective methods. While a Nancy Drew mystery at least "''tells'' readers that Nancy works by logical reasoning," Kay "lurches from coincidence to happenstance." Some call Kay a "Nancy Drew imposter." Anne Macleod and others argue that the series was less long-lasting than Nancy Drew, despite its superficial similarities, because "the stories fail to support the kind of authority and autonomy that Nancy enjoys without question." Kay lacks her own car, but must instead borrow her cousin Bill's, and her authority is "undercut by her clear identification as a schoolgirl." Kay lives with her mother, not her father; while Kay's mother does not interfere in Kay's mystery-solving, she "carries non-interventionism to the point of idiocy"Macleod (1995),32-33. and fails to provide the series with the cachet that
Carson Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn ...
provided for Nancy. In general, however, critics often see Kay Tracey as simply one of a number of girls' series that are important because they provided girl readers with role models, particularly girls who grew up before
third-wave feminism Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth-wave feminism, fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second-wave feminism, second wave, Generation X, Gen X ...
.Inness (1997), 256.


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * Society of Phantom Friends, The (2006). ''The Girls' Series Companion''. USA: SynSine Press ISGN 1-891388-07-X.


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kay Tracey Book series introduced in 1934 Children's mystery novels Juvenile series Stratemeyer Syndicate