Nick Carter was destined to have the longest life of any fictional private eye. The first series of Nick Carter stories appeared in September 1886 in the New York Weekly. Since then, the forever young detective continued to appear in books, magazines, comics, and, for twelve years, radio programs, remaining a favorite of the American public for almost seventy years. After a short break, in 1964 Nick. Carter has been resurrected as a modern-day Secret Service agent in a series of novels that has spanned over a hundred titles. From the start, Nick Carter is a handsome, smart young man, small in stature but highly trained. He is determined, brave, straightforward and dedicated to his work. Nothing can shake his faith in justice and his patriotism. He conducts investigations skillfully and professionally, and is especially knowledgeable in forensic medicine. His specialty is the art of impersonation: he can act as a Chinese, a dandy, an old woman, a young black man and a capitalist. Carter's character was sketched from a page by Ormond J. Smith (1860-1933); his cousin, John R. Coryel (1848–1924), brought Nick Carter into flesh and blood and wrote the first three serials about the exploits of the New York detective. Then Frederick Van Day (1861-1922), the most prolific of the authors who wrote about Nick Carter, took up the matter. And at least a dozen other authors wrote about him. Carter was the first of the American literary detectives to appear on the silver screen. In the silent films he was played by Andre Leabel, Thomas Carrigan and Edmund Lowe, in the sound films by Walter Pidgeon. The story “The Pretty Clever Girl” first appeared on November 24, 1894 in the New York Weekly with the subtitle “From the Stories of Nick Carter.”< /p>