The Haunted Bridge is the fifteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was originally published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1937. It was written by Mildred Wirt Benson, whom many readers and scholars consider the “truest” of the numerous Carolyn Keene ghostwriters, following an outline by Edna Stratemeyer.

Summary (original edition)

In The Haunted Bridge, a spectral figure materializing through the river mist draws Nancy Drew into a tangled mystery of stolen jewels and fractured memories in this atmospheric Depression-era tale. Penned by Mildred Wirt Benson as Carolyn Keene, the story begins with Nancy accompanying her father to a mountain resort where guests whisper about the “bridge ghost”—a mournful woman in Edwardian dress who appears near a collapsing wooden trestle, always clutching her throat before vanishing into the fog.

The local legend takes on chilling reality when Nancy witnesses the apparition herself, its pearl necklace glinting with unnatural light. Her investigation uncovers disturbing connections to a decades-old jewel robbery and a traumatized amnesiac living at the resort, whose fragmented memories may hold the key to both the ghostly sightings and the missing gems. As Nancy pieces together clues from water-stained hotel ledgers and the bridge’s warped planks (which moan eerily underfoot), she realizes the haunting coincides with suspicious activity at the abandoned Riverside Inn upstream.

The 1937 original thrums with period authenticity—Nancy analyzes Depression-era pawnshop tickets hidden in a hollow tree, recognizes how the ghost’s appearance aligns with train schedules bringing potential buyers for stolen goods, and discovers the “haunted” bridge’s structural weaknesses are being deliberately exacerbated to keep trespassers away. Unlike later revisions, this version retains Nancy’s heart-stopping plunge through rotten timbers into the rushing river below, where the icy water shocks her into realizing the ghost’s choking gesture mirrors death by drowning.

This novel stands out for its psychological depth—the bridge itself becomes a metaphor for fragile connections between past and present, while the ghost’s pearls (real? counterfeit? stolen?) symbolize truths buried deep beneath turbulent surfaces. Nancy’s final confrontation with the “apparition” in the Riverside Inn’s ballroom—where a wind-up phonograph plays a waltz no one has danced to in thirty years—remains one of the series’ most hauntingly beautiful resolutions.

Nancy Drew #15 –The Haunted Bridge First Edition Book Identification

Only the first few printings of the first/second year are shown. Printings codes are based on the Farrah Guide, 12th printing. Please refer to the guide for later printings.

Note: Glossy+: Glossy frontis + 3 glossy internals.

Nancy Drew #15 –The Haunted Bridge First Edition Dust Jacket Identification

Reference:

• Farah’s Guide to Nancy Drew, 12th printing