Children's author known for her work on the early Nancy Drew books. Writing under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, she penned twenty-three Nancy Drew mysteries during the late 1920s, '30s, and '40s.
She studied English and journalism at the University of Iowa and subsequently began a six-decade-long career as a columnist for the Toledo Blade.
Under her own name, she wrote the popular Penny Parker series, which consisted of eighteen books published between 1939 and 1948.
Her first husband, Asa Wirt, was an employee of the Associated Press. Her second husband, George A. Benson, also had a journalistic career, though his was with a Toledo, Ohio newspaper.
Author Edward Stratemeyer published the popular Nancy Drew series written by Benson and other authors.
