Connie Blair Series - Titles and Collecting Information

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The Connie Blair series is a 12 volume series that was published by Grosset and Dunlap.  The first 11 books were written by Betty Cavanna under the pseudonym of Betsy Allen, and the last book was written by an unknown acquaintance of Cavanna.  The advertising for the series states, "You can identify A Connie Blair Mystery at a glance because a color is always featured in the title."

Connie Blair is a young woman who works for an advertising firm.  Connie's assignments often lead her to exotic locales and always land Connie in the middle of a dangerous mystery.

List of Titles:

  1. The Clue in Blue, 1948
  2. The Riddle in Red, 1948
  3. Puzzle in Purple, 1948
  4. The Secret of Black Cat Gulch, 1948
  5. The Green Island Mystery, 1949
  6. The Ghost Wore White, 1950
  7. The Yellow Warning, 1951
  8. The Gray Menace, 1953
  9. The Brown Satchel Mystery, 1954
10. Peril in Pink, 1955
11. The Silver Secret, 1956
12. The Mystery of the Ruby Queens, 1958

Formats:

All 12 volumes were originally printed in hardcover with dust jacket.  Volumes 1 through 4 were reprinted in the picture cover format, which is when the front cover picture is printed directly on the book itself.  Volume 4 is more difficult to acquire in picture cover than volumes 1, 2, and 3.  All 12 volumes were reprinted during the late 1960s in paperback by Tempo Books, a division of Grosset and Dunlap.  In 1978, volumes 1, 9, and 12 were once again reprinted in paperback.

Identifying the age of a book:

The copyright page is the last place to look when you are trying to discover the age of a Connie Blair book.  Grosset and Dunlap never made changes to the copyright page.  For each volume, every single printing in dust jacket will have the same copyright page.  For example, all printings of The Clue in Blue from 1948 until the last dust-jacketed printing in 1961 will have the exact same copyright page stating 1948 with no other dates.  This means that to the uninformed, all dust-jacketed copies of The Clue in Blue appear to be first printings when most of them are not first printings.  The same applies to the rest of the titles in the series.

The two easiest places to look in order to determine the age of a Connie Blair book are on the dust jacket’s front flap, if the jacket is present, and on an interior list of titles.  The last title present in the list of Connie Blair titles will tell you what the age of the book is.  For instance, if the dust jacket's front flap lists to The Green Island Mystery, then the book was printed in 1949, which is the year of publication for The Green Island Mystery.  Or, if the dust jacket's front flap lists to The Brown Satchel Mystery, then the book was printed in 1954, which is the year of publication for The Brown Satchel Mystery.

When the book is missing its dust jacket, refer to the interior list of titles, if present.  There is usually a list of titles present on one of the pages in the front of the book. 

For more information, visit my series book website.