Look familiar? Or entirely new?

  

Are we of the same generation? The generation to whom this Nancy Drew book cover -- if the series was part of your regular reading fare -- would be unfamiliar? If so, then the rest of the features could be new to you as well. The Kennedy suit -- that's what Nancy, George and Bess are wearing in this cover image from 1962. Check out Nancy's image on the back cover and the endpapers (the double-size sheet of paper, half of which is glued to the inside covers of hardback books). These are not how I remember the books I pored over. Leafing through a Nancy Drew book gives me a pleasantly familiar feeling, while the sight of new features between the covers provides the thrill of a new encounter. 

Endpapers (left) used in Nancy Drew Mystery Stories books printed around the late 1950s till the early 1960s; back cover corner image (right) on those printed from 1962-1968

Behind the "new" elements in this particular copy of The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk is the fact that it is of an edition that is old -- older than what was produced in the mid-1970s. Volume 17 in the series was written in 1940, with a similar scene involving the three young ladies depicted on the original art dust jacket. Two decades later, several volumes underwent changes in the cover art to reflect the times more closely.

Fortunately, this edition still contains the original text from 1940 (25 chapters!) despite other elements being revised. For a bit of nostalgia for some of you, below is the cover of the 1976 edition, to which I also got accustomed as a child. This one contains the revised text (20 chapters). 

Did  you  notice the little detail? In the revised-text edition (which first came out in 1976), 'brass-bound' trunk is hyphenated. Punctuation matters indeed!

The cover art for both versions, by the way, is by Rudy Nappi, whose work can be seen on dozens of volumes of the ND classic series (and quite a few Hardy Boys Mystery Stories, too!).