'The Hidden Staircase: The Original 1930 Text, Restored' Recovers the Haunted-House Mystery Its Author Called Her Favorite, Before the 1959 Rewrite Rebuilt It

Nancy's second case returns with the original villain, the original sisters, and the staircase as it was built in 1930

NEW YORK, Oct. 29, 2026, The second Nancy Drew mystery has been published in its original 1930 form for the first time in more than sixty years. The Hidden Staircase: The Original 1930 Text, Restored (Companion Classics) presents the complete novel exactly as it first appeared, all twenty-five chapters, collated against three independent printings of the original text, with Russell H. Tandy's four original 1930 illustrations. Editor Horace Harriott Jr. adds an introduction telling the book's two-texts story, an essay on its author, a note on the period text, and an appendix of verified differences between the 1930 original and the version that replaced it.

The Hidden Staircase was published on April 28, 1930, one of three Nancy Drew books released the same day to launch the series, and Mildred Wirt Benson, the young Iowa journalist who ghost-wrote most of the early volumes, later called it her personal favorite of all the Nancy Drews she wrote. Two weeks after it appeared, Edward Stratemeyer, the man who created Nancy, was dead.

It is a darker, stranger book than the one that replaced it: a stranger threatens Carson Drew at home, lures him away with a false report that Nancy lies injured, and holds him prisoner in the house next door, while twin sisters Rosemary and Floretta Turnbull are frightened out of their house, called simply The Mansion in 1930, by a staged "haunting" meant to force a sale. In the 1959 rewrite, the original's twenty-five chapters became twenty, the villain Nathan Gombet became Nathan Gomber, The Mansion became Twin Elms, the twin sisters became a mother and daughter, and an accomplice was invented. This edition restores the 1930 text, down to the first edition's own quirks, including a chapter whose title differs between the contents page and the chapter itself, preserved and explained.

Alongside the book, the Nancy Drew, The Hidden Staircase Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF, with chapter and whole-book questions arranged for group reading. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: https://payhip.com/b/V6dAr

The Hidden Staircase: The Original 1930 Text, Restored is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/CjqV3, paperback and hardcover print editions follow on Amazon. The novel's 1930 text and Tandy's illustrations are in the U.S. public domain; all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent restoration of a public-domain work. Not published, authorized, or endorsed by Simon & Schuster, Inc. NANCY DREW is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., used here only to identify the 1930 work.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

The Hidden Staircase: The Original 1930 Text, Restored, Carolyn Keene (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. The novel was first published April 28, 1930; the 1959 revision is a separate, later version not reproduced here.