# Is "The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)" by Carolyn Keene (Mildred Wirt Benson) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1) by Carolyn Keene (Mildred Wirt Benson) (Grosset & Dunlap, 1930) is identified by: Grosset & Dunlap, New York, published 28 April 1930; the first printing is the format Farah's Guide designates 1930A-1. US-only precedence; the census claim stands.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Grosset & Dunlap, New York, published 28 April 1930; the first printing is the format Farah's Guide designates 1930A-1
- Points: blue cloth with the front-cover title lettering outlined in black and no Nancy Drew silhouette on the cover; blank white endpapers (the orange silhouette endpapers are a later format); a glossy frontispiece plus three glossy internal plates by Russell H. Tandy (four glossy illustrations in all — from 1937 three were dropped, leaving only a frontispiece); a white-spine dust jacket with Tandy's artwork and no Nancy silhouette
- The copyright/series page lists only the first three titles — The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery — followed by "Other Volumes In Preparation." The post-text advertising section opens "This Isn't All!" and carries ad lists for Hardy Boys (8 titles), Ted Scott
- , Rover Boys
- , Tom Swift
- , Don Sturdy
- Publisher imprint reads Grosset & Dunlap

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Carolyn Keene (Mildred Wirt Benson) |
| Publisher | Grosset & Dunlap |
| Year | 1930 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Grosset & Dunlap, New York, published 28 April 1930; the first printing is the format Farah's Guide designates 1930A-1 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, published 28 April 1930; the first printing is the format Farah's Guide designates 1930A-1. Points: blue cloth with the front-cover title lettering outlined in black and no Nancy Drew silhouette on the cover; blank white endpapers (the orange silhouette endpapers are a later format); a glossy frontispiece plus three glossy internal plates by Russell H. Tandy (four glossy illustrations in all — from 1937 three were dropped, leaving only a frontispiece); a white-spine dust jacket with Tandy's artwork and no Nancy silhouette. The copyright/series page lists only the first three titles — The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery — followed by "Other Volumes In Preparation." The post-text advertising section opens "This Isn't All!" and carries ad lists for Hardy Boys (8 titles), Ted Scott (11), Rover Boys (30), Tom Swift (33), Don Sturdy (9) and Radio Boys (12); those counts grow in later printings, which is how the format is dated. Series books are format-dated by jacket and ad lists rather than by any stated edition, and several early printings fall before the silhouette and endpaper changes, so the ad-list counts must be checked rather than assumed.

## Is this the true first?
US-only precedence; the census claim stands. Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1930 is the sole true first — there is no competing UK or original-language edition. The book was written by Mildred Wirt Benson under the Stratemeyer Syndicate house name Carolyn Keene, but that authorship point has no bearing on edition precedence.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue applies. The reprint traps are format changes: the Nancy silhouette added to the cover and jacket, orange silhouette endpapers, the 1937 reduction to a frontispiece only with expanded jacket copy, the 1943 updated frontispiece, the 1950 wraparound jacket with Bill Gillies artwork continuing across the spine, and the 1959 textual revision with five new illustrations. Later "picture cover" (pictorial-board, jacketless) editions and the revised 1959 text are entirely different books from the 1930A-1 format.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1)* by Carolyn Keene (Mildred Wirt Benson) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-secret-of-the-old-clock-nancy-drew-1
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.