Violet Strange and Phoebe Daring: Girl Detectives Before Nancy Drew

Stephanie Gorton Murphy writes about the girl detectives who predated Nancy Drew. Both Daring and the more conservatively named Mary Louise were created by L. Frank Baum. Violet Strange starred in a collection of short stories by Anna Katherine Green, who had earlier created the spinster detective Amelia Butterworth.

Frontispiece to The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange, 1915. Art by A.I. Keller.

M.R. Harrington, a.k.a Ramon de las Cuevas

Mark Raymond Harrington was not only an archaeologist and ethnologist, but also a writer. Tellers of Weird Tales has an account of one of his earlier works of fiction, Teoquitla the Golden, which was published in Weird Tales using his pseudonym, Ramon de las Cuevas (i.e., Raymond of the Caves).

This story was published in 1924, the year before Arthur Parker and William Ritchie would begin excavations at the Lamoka Lake site. Harrington had recently completed his work at the Ozark rockshelters (likely the inspiration for his pen name) and would soon make some of his major discoveries in Nevada.

See how Harrington dressed when he wasn’t writing here.

Weird Tales 1924 Ramon de las Cuevas
Cover Story! Weird Tales November 1924, from tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com