Nancy Drew Books in Order

How many Nancy Drew books are there?

Nancy Drew appears in 591 books, released between 1930 and 2026. 570 of them belong to the 16 main-line series (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, Nancy Drew Files, Nancy Drew: Notebooks and others), and 21 related titles sit outside it: graphic novels.

Nancy Drew Books in Publication Order

The table lists all 591 Nancy Drew books in the order they were released, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.

There are 591 recorded titles, more than one list usefully holds. The 300 earliest are below; the series linked further down carry the rest, each in its own order.

Nancy Drew Books in Chronological Order

By publication date, the books of the 16 main-line series run from The Secret of the Old Clock (1930) to Vans & Villains (2026), the sequence in the table above. No separate story order is recorded for Nancy Drew in the book listings this catalogue merges, so publication order is the only order on record.

Do you have to read Nancy Drew books in order?

You should read the 16 main-line series in publication order, the order of the numbered table above; the 21 related titles (graphic novels) sit outside that sequence. The catalogue does not record whether each Nancy Drew book also stands alone.

Where to start with Nancy Drew

Start with The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), the earliest published book in the 16 main-line series.

What is the newest Nancy Drew book?

Vans & Villains (2026) is the newest book in the 16 main-line series.

Is there a new Nancy Drew book coming?

No next Nancy Drew book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.

Nancy Drew at a glance

Still running

Nancy Drew is still running, with a main-line title published as recently as 2026.

Release pace

Nancy Drew books have appeared more than one a year on average.

Length

60,975 pages across the 422 of 591 books with a recorded length, a median of 151 pages each.

Busiest decade

Most Nancy Drew books, 229 of 591, were published in the 1990s.

Attribution

Of the 591 titles, 585 are credited to Carolyn Keene and 6 to Franklin W. Dixon.

What the Nancy Drew books are about

567 of the 591 Nancy Drew books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: mystery & detective is tagged on 432 of 567. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.

• Mystery & detective 432 of 567 books
• Children's fiction 378 of 567 books
• Drew, nancy (fictitious character) 345 of 567 books
• CollectionID:NDF 103 of 567 books
• CollectionID:NDMS 97 of 567 books
• CollectionID:NDN 55 of 567 books
• Hardy boys (fictitious characters) 33 of 567 books
• Adventure stories 32 of 567 books
• Series:HardyBoys 32 of 567 books

Series featuring Nancy Drew

Each series linked below has its own reading-order page.

• Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew books in order 40 books
• Nancy Drew Diaries books in order 28 books