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Mildred Wirt Benson

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Author

The Resume

    (July 10, 1905-May 28, 2002)
    Birth Name was Mildred Augustine
    Pseudonyms are Carolyn Keene, Frances Judd, Dorothy West and Helen Louise Thorndyke
    Created Nancy Drew
    Wrote 130 children books
    Author of 'The Secret of the Old Clock' (1930)

Why she might be annoying:

    She married her boss, the editor of the Toledo Ohio Times, George Benson (1950).
    The guys in her books were total sissies!

Why she might not be annoying:

    At twenty-four, she wrote 'The Secret of the Old Clock,' the first Nancy Drew book under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene (1930).
    She was forced to sell the rights to the Nancy Drew character to get it published.
    She was paid a very low rate of just $125 per book for the Nancy Drew stories.
    She was legally forbidden to reveal that she was Carolyn Keene, the author of Nancy Drew.
    A 1980 copyright lawsuit revealed her name to the public as the author of Nancy Drew.
    Over 200,000,000 Nancy Drew books have been sold.
    One of her old typewriters is in the Smithsonian
    She wrote 23 of the first 25 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories.
    She wrote 100 short stories to finance her way through college.
    She was the first female to graduate the University of Iowa with a Masters in Journalism (1927).
    Her first husband, Asa Wirt, was a journalist for Associated Press and died in 1947.
    She became a licensed pilot at fifty-nine.
    She was still working when she died at ninety six.

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 70.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 15 Votes: 20.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 18 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 14 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 23 Votes: 47.83% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 16 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 26 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 41 Votes: 63.41% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 53 Votes: 49.06% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 68 Votes: 54.41% Annoying
    In 2006, Out of 122 Votes: 43.44% Annoying
    In 2005, Out of 183 Votes: 39.89% Annoying
    In 2004, Out of 316 Votes: 43.04% Annoying
    In 2003, Out of 595 Votes: 43.70% Annoying