Nancy Drew has been issued in several book club editions over the years. This guide will briefly touch on the editions, with more detailed information provided about the first two book club printings.

The Nancy Drew Reader's Club, beginning in 1959, published six titles from the most current in the series at the time, through the Doubleday bookclub. These books are roughly the same design as other Grosset and Dunlap book club editions from the era. Books from this set feature unique new art by children's artist Polly Bolian.  They are two-toned pastel, with a cameo featuring Nancy's side profile on the front, and the spine. The books were nicknamed, "cameos," by Nancy Drew expert Dr.David Farah. The books have a full-color dust jacket on matte paper, with a color cover, and on the rear cover, one of the internal illustrations is reproduced. The books contain a color frontispiece, which is the same as the jacket art, and eight double-page illustrations. All volumes are roughly 192 pages in length, and the sides of the pages are rough-cut, not uniform. The books have all volume numbers removed, and internal text references to other volumes are deleted, so that no order to the books can be determined, including prior volume promotion and next book notices. Each book contains its original copyright date and a date of either 1959 or 1960 for the illustrations. The endpaper illustrations feature items from Nancy Drew stories (particularly from the volumes featured in these editions) with a large cameo of Nancy's head, topped by a ribbon. The ribbon almost always corresponds to the color of the ribbon the binding of the book, although some editions of "Wooden Lady" feature a violet ribbon (as on the binding) and others feature turquoise.

In 1960, six more volumes were added to the editions.  The books were always mailed in the same order, meaning that those from 1959, particularly "The Clue of the Velvet Mask," which was available as a trial volume for 10 cents, are easier to find than the 1960 copyrighted volumes. Plans for additional titles were changed in 1961, (allegedly due to the upcoming change in printing formats of the regular issue series) and the books went out of print early in that year.

Bolian's Nancy prototype is a preppy girl in tailored blouses and skirts, with typical 1950's era accessories. Nancy is illustrated as a tall, slim strawberry blonde, with short, tousled, wavy hair, different in appearance from the version illustrated for the regular series with pageboy hair and full skirts. Bolian adopts an illustration style very popular in the late 1950's. Although blonde bombshells with curvy figures were popular at the box office, Audrey Hepburn's silhouette was favored by illustrators and the art world.  Walt Disney studios uses the same illustration techniques for "Sleeping Beauty," as Bolian does---females are illustrated taller, slimmer, and with longer limbs than ordinary.

Volumes Issued:

The Clue of the Velvet Mask, 1959

The Ringmaster's Secret, 1959

The Scarlet Slipper Mystery, 1959

The Witch Tree Symbol, 1959

The Hidden Window Mystery, 1959

The Haunted Showboat, 1959

The Secret of the Golden Pavilion, 1960

The Clue of the Black Keys, 1960

The Mystery at the Ski Jump, 1960

The Secret of the Wooden Lady, 1960

The Secret of the Old Clock (revised text) 1960

The Hidden Staircase (revised text) 1960

The second book club editions came out in 1962, and again, sequencing cues were removed from the exterior binding. Although regular picture cover editions featured a list of titles on the back cover, the back covers are blank on these editions, and the volume number on the spine is removed. The title page states, "Book Club Edition," and the pre-text lists of Nancy Drews and Dana Girls is removed. The books are otherwise the same as other titles in the series. Prior volume promotions and next book notices are included. The only volumes issued were 1-32, even though there were up to 40 titles while the editions were in print.  1-4, 6, and 7 feature revised text stories, and the other volumes are not revised.  The Clue in the Diary, volume 7, is the only revised text book issued with white endpapers from the first seven texts; the rest use the blue endpapers found in the regular issue series of the time. Although volume seven was issued for one printing in regular picture cover editions with original text, it was not issued in the book club editions. Volumes above 25 are less available then the lower number titles, indicating that possibly the series was mailed to purchasers sequentially.

The third Nancy Drew book club editions are twin-thrillers, which could be ordered directly from their binder in New Jersey. They were aimed at libraries and schools, primarily, but also available to the public. They began publication in the early 1970's, and like the Grosset-issued library editions, are pale lilac in color. The books are bound together texts of two volumes (1 and 2, 3 and 4, etc.) and feature a clover design and a boxed illustration from one of the two cover arts (except the first features art from a triple-edition of the first three books).  The books were issued sequentially, and include the original text of volume 13 with the revised text of volume 14 in one. The publisher must have decided this was undesirable, and chose skipping 17 and 24, which had not yet been revised.  This volume was presented with the non-sequential titles bound together, as the last one in the series. Twin Thrillers were available for purchase up until at least 1981 (when my local library made a purchase order for some for the librarian's daughter), but no new titles were issued after the first 52.

In 1976, the first three volumes of Nancy Drew were issued in a mustard yellow cloth binding. The volumes are slightly larger than the standard printings, and feature a yellow dust cover, with a boxed illustration of the standard cover art used by Grossett. 

In conjunction with the popular television program, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries,  the publisher offered direct-shipping of both series. Although promoted as a book club, particularly on tooth-paste boxes, and other products of interest to children, it was really a continued, sequential mailing directly from the publisher. The volumes are the same as those that a child could order directly using forms found in the back of the books. The mail-order availability was advertised on television during typical afternoon, syndicated programming intended for children. For a full payment, the entire series could be received in one shipping, or the remaining volumes could be shipped as well (a standard procedure in other book clubs offering children's series).