The Secret in the Old Attic

Infobox Book |
name = The Secret in the Old Attic


image_caption =
author = Carolyn Keene
country = United States
language = English
series = Nancy Drew stories
genre = Detective, Mystery novel
publisher = Grosset & Dunlap
release_date = 1944
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Secret in the Old Attic" is the twenty-first volume in the Nancy Drew mystery series. It was first published in 1944 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.

Plot summary

In the 1944 version, Nancy searches for clues to missing music manuscripts written by deceased soldier Phillip March. Philip March's daughter and his father, living together on the family estate, are rapidly running out of money, and believe some of "Fipp's" music is being sold and played on the airwaves. Nancy goes to the estate to investigate, with the help of Bess and George. In the meantime, her father's client solicits her aid involving his investigation of a rival company, which seems to be making silk using his patented methods. In the meantime, the girls are all planning on an Emerson dance except Nancy---Ned doesn't seem to be interested. Could Diane Dight, rich daughter of the Dight firm, which Nancy is investigating, have turned Ned's head? And what is Bushy Trott, manic scientist, doing at the Dight plant?

Nancy continues trying to solve both mysteries, discovering hidden songs in the process, and eventually unravels the mystery which involves one criminal who has committed two crimes! All the while, she tries (unsuccessfully) to shed few tears over Ned, who seems to be in company with the snobbish socialite Diane. The resolution of both cases and her romantic plight is climactic---one of the best Nancy Drews in the original series!

The revised version, now in print, is a condensed version of the original story. It is shorter by five chapters, and includes Diane Dight, but not the romantic subplot in the original

1970 (from front flyleaf)Nancy Drew races against time to unravel the clues in a dead man's letters. If she succeeds, Philip March and his little granddaughter, Susan March, can be saved from financial ruin. Following the obscure clues, Nancy undertakes a search for some unpublished musical manuscripts which she believes are hidden in the dark, chilly, cluttered attic of the run-down March mansion. But someone else wants them enough to put many frightening obstacles in Nancy's way.

It takes courage and ingenuity for the alert young detective to discover the significance of the skeleton with the upraised arm and to find the source of the spooky music in the old attic.

Startling developments await Nancy when she aids her lawyer father, Carson Drew, in doing some detective work on a case involving a stolen formula for a unique silk-making process. How she outwits a trio of ruthless thieves and solves the Marches' problems as well as her father's case makes exciting reading.

Collectors of the series claim to greatly enjoy the original art by Russell H. Tandy, which shows Nancy with highly Gothic elements, by candlelight, in the old attic. In 1962, Rudy Nappi gave Nancy a modern flip hairstyle and changed the color to red, and altered her shirtwaist wrap dress to a generic red sailor style dress for the picture cover art. In 1970, Nappi updated his art again, using shadowy apple green, and gothic elements, including the skeletal hand, to showcase Nancy, looking very much like Barbara Eden in a coatfront shift, with a candle. This cover plays heavily on the spooky elements popular during the Dark Shadows era.