![]() Of course, eventually the different plot threads begin to unravel-but not before Nancy does a little law-breaking. The “hauntings” are eerie and inexplicable, and when Nancy learns that her father has disappeared, she becomes rather depressed and loses interest in the mystery. Instead, she goes it alone, and repeatedly runs into dead ends. ![]() ![]() Unlike the revised text, Nancy doesn’t bring a friend along to the mansion to help. Indeed, I found that The Hidden Staircase had a very dark, gloomy tone. In fact, I would say that a majority of the book is spent showing Nancy trying and failing to uncover clues, which was interesting to me, because I’m more used to Nancy being unrealistically brilliant and quick on the uptake. I was first struck by the slow, deliberate pace of the story-there’s a long build-up to Nancy traveling out the mansion to help out the elderly Turnbull sisters, and there’s an equally long build-up to her discovery of the titular hidden staircase. ![]() This was my first time reading the original text, authored by Mildred Wirt Benson, and I deeply enjoyed it. ![]() 1930 Edition, illustrated by Russell Tandy ![]()
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