The Haunted Showboat

by Carolyn Keene

Nancy Drew (35)

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Nancy Drew, the girl detective, and her friend, Ned Nickerson, find a pirate chest filled with gold coins in the hold of an old showboat.

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5 reviews
Nancy Drew is a very determined girl when it comes to solving mysteries. In this book, there is a mystery on a showboat that needs to be solved. Nancy and her friends make a trip down to New Orleans to help with the case. However, even before and while they try and make their way down to New Orleans, someone is with them every step of the way trying to stop them from going. People who work on the old showboat are spooked because once they fix the showboat, someone, or something, ruins all their hard work. Through many sequence of events, Nancy, with the help of her friends, solve the mystery.
Nancy Drew books would be great to use in classrooms because they are very fun to read. At the end of every chapter, the author puts in one show more sentence, or one scene that makes the reader wanting more. This book would also be great for instruction because after each chapter you could have students try and guess what will happen next. This book definitely kept me wondering and was such a fun read.
I really liked this book because it was non stop full of suspense. It was very well written and had numerous twists and turns that no one could see coming. It was also very easy to read. I am a big fan of mysteries because I like trying to predict what will happen next, and this book did a great job of making the ending a huge surprise.
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I absolutely loved Nancy Drew growing up. This was a series I latched on to for dear life and never let go. Anytime my mom and I would go to antique stores, we'd peruse the Nancy Drews and add them to the collection (oftentimes my mom had to make deals with me on how many I could buy). So, while I don't remember the exact details of each and every one, the entire series was amazing and really fed my love for reading (especially novels full of suspense and mystery). Thank you, Carolyn Keene, for giving us an intelligent female character to fall in love with in Nancy Drew!
Had mostly forgotten this one. Mardi Gras in New Orleans back when the beads were apparently "imitation pearl necklaces"! Very fun.
Bess and George invite Nancy on a trip to New Orleans, to help their relatives solve a mystery. Their uncle wants to restore an old showboat, the River Princess, but no one will go near it! Mysterious occurrences are making everything believe the boat is haunted. Can Nancy uncover the truth?
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Author Information

Picture of author.
925+ Works 201,405 Members
Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym that Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig used to write Nancy Drew books. The idea of Nancy Drew came from Edward Stratemeyer in 1929. He also had other series, that included the Hardy Boys, but he died in 1930 before the Nancy Drew series became famous. His daughters, Harriet and Edna, inherited his company and show more maintained Nancy Drew having Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Carolyn Keene, as the principal ghostwriter. During the Depression, they asked Benson to take a pay cut and she refused, which is when Karig wrote the books. Karig's Nancy Drew books were Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, and Password to Larkspur Lane. He was fired from writing more books because of his refusal to honor the request that he keep his work as Carolyn Keene a secret. He allowed the Library of Congress to learn of his authorship and his name appeared on their catalog cards. Afterwards, they rehired Benson and she wrote until her last Nancy Drew book (#30) was written in 1953, Clue of the Velvet Mask. Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer also contributed to the Nancy Drew series. Edna wrote plot outlines for several of the early books and Harriet, who claimed to be the sole author, had actually outlined and edited nearly all the volumes written by Benson. The Stratemeyer Syndicate had begun to make its writers sign contracts that prohibited them from claiming any credit for their works, but Benson never denied her writing books for the series. After Harriet's death in 1982, Simon and Schuster became the owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate properties and in 1994, publicly recognized Benson for her work at a Nancy Drew conference at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. Now, Nancy Drew has several ghostwriters and artists that have contributed to her more recent incarnations. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
The Haunted Showboat
Original publication date
1957
People/Characters
Nancy Drew; Ned Nickerson; Bess Marvin; George Fayne; Hannah Gruen
First words
“Would a trip to the Mardi Gras interest you, Nancy, and also a mystery to solve?” Bess Marvin asked.

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, Kids
DDC/MDS
813.54Literature & rhetoricAmerican literature in EnglishAmerican fiction in English1900-19991945-1999
LCC
PZ7 .K23 .NLanguage and LiteratureFiction and juvenile belles lettresFiction and juvenile belles lettresJuvenile belles lettres
BISAC

Statistics

Members
1,500
Popularity
15,336
Reviews
5
Rating
½ (3.63)
Languages
English, Finnish, French, Swedish
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
18
ASINs
21