Five Classic Series That Have Endured

Cherry Ames

Publishing History
At the outbreak of World War II, a buoyant, resourceful student nurse named Cherry Ames was created to encourage women to enter the nursing profession. Cherry’s exploits were recorded in a series of twenty-seven  books published by Grosset & Dunlap from 1943 to 1968. Author Helen Wells stepped aside for a time, letting Julie Campbell, the original author of the Trixie Belden series, pen Cherry’s adventures as a cruise nurse, a dude ranch nurse, and a night supervisor. (Wells resumed writing the series with the seventeenth book.) Four books were issued in 1972 in paperback by Grosset & Dunlap, which published three of those four titles again in 1978.

On Shelves Now?
Springer Publishing Company is reprinting all the Cherry Ames books, in boxed sets of four facsimile hardcover editions, finishing by early 2008.

The Controversy
Some view Cherry’s nursing work as adhering to traditional gender roles, while others see a feminist statement in her pursuit of a career instead of a husband.

Pop Culture Spinoffs
The Cherry Ames series can claim a board game and a first-aid book.

Did You Know?
When Julie Campbell wrote Country Doctor’s Nurse, her last book in the Cherry Ames series, she slipped in references to two other series for which she had written: Trixie Belden and Vicki Barr: Flight Stewardess.