The Connie Blair Boxed Sets

Recently, I had the opportunity to purchase a boxed set of some of the Tempo paperback Connie Blair books.  I already had a set of paperbacks in a slipcase, but this set is enclosed in a box.

 

The above box has a flap that opens to show the books inside. 

Here is the slipcase version of the boxed set.

Note:  I do not have all eight books displayed in the slipcase since it is a tight fit.

I prefer the slipcase version since it displays better.

In regard to both versions of the boxed set, the designer chose an image of Connie that shows her unconscious, which is bizarre.  Perhaps the publisher wanted buyers to think that the books contained graphic content.  Since these were books for children and young adults, I think Connie's face from Puzzle in Purple would have looked much better on the boxed set.

But what do I know?

Connie Blair's Colorful Clues Part II

I almost hate to admit it, but I find that I like The Mystery of the Ruby Queens the best of all of the books in the series. This distresses me a bit because it is the only Connie Blair book that Cavanna did not write. This book is set in an old house, and Connie must try to find the missing Ruby Queens, which are six priceless figurines. I always love mysteries that are set in old houses and that require the sleuth to search for something. The book is quite well-written.

My first and foremost thought is who wrote it? All we know is that Cavanna contracted to have someone else write it. Cavanna never revealed who that person was. We do know that Cavanna was reluctant to have everyone know that she did not write it. For a time during the 1980s, she had told at least one collector the truth but begged for silence. Later, Cavanna changed her mind and told a group of fans. After that gathering, it was common knowledge that Cavanna did not write the last Connie Blair book. From page 29 of Issue 31 of The Mystery and Adventure Series Review, Fred Woodworth tells the story:

In a 1984 issue of this magazine I published Don Holbrook's very favorable review of the Connie Blair series. After the piece was printed, I managed to locate the old author of the series and sent her a copy of the review. This resulted in some cordial correspondence, during the course of which she revealed—in strict confidence—that she had not written Ruby Queens herself, but had contracted with someone else to do so.

I'd have liked to bring this interesting tidbit to the attention of Review readers, but felt bound by my word that I would treat this fact as confidential. Imagine my surprise when, some months later, after I'd put that author in contact with some other fans of her books, she attended a convention of theirs as a featured speaker—and in her talk calmly announced the news that she had not written this story! The upshot was that other publications which had done nothing to review her work or even find out if she was still living, got to report this as if they'd run down the news themselves.

Now, back to my question of who wrote the last Connie Blair book? I kept this thought in mind as I read the book. I was struck by how good the book is. It was certainly not written by an amateur and must have been written by an established writer. It was written by someone who had read the early Connie Blair books and knew about the series. Was this person just an acquaintance of Cavanna, or was this person someone whose name we would recognize?

Connie Blair's Colorful Clues Part I

I recently revisited the Connie Blair books. In the past, I recall people stating that the first book, The Clue in Blue, is slow-paced. It does start out slowly, a little slower than I would prefer. The first two chapters read more like the usual young adult fare—probably because the author was Betty Cavanna. During the third chapter, Connie gets knocked out, so the action begins.

In the Connie Blair series, Connie is knocked unconscious many times. If someone were knocked out this many times in real life, they would have to end up with brain damage. Some of Connie's concussions are quite bad, particularly the one in The Gray Menace in which the assailant drew blood.

Cavanna was an expert at imagery. From The Puzzle in Purple, page 83:

Somehow, though it was a lovely and dramatic thing the sight of the ill-fated cape made her shudder. She had a feeling that in using it to drape the skeleton someone had tossed a pebble into a dark pool. In ever-widening ripples the water it had disturbed might eventually reach some dim and frightening shore.

I noticed a mistake in The Secret of Black Cat Gulch. Connie and Georgia stay at the Casa Bonito. Casa is Spanish for house, and it is a feminine word. The name of the inn should be Casa Bonita.

People love it when something exciting happens, like a bad car wreck, or even a car wreck that is not bad, and cars slow down so that the drivers can gawk. I remember having to slow down to a crawl one time on the interstate highway because of a pickup stopped at the side of the road with a refrigerator standing behind it. Wow, how exciting, a refrigerator. I was disgusted because I wanted to get home. From pages 158-159 in The Peril in Pink, a similar and hilarious scene occurs:

.....the chase was not over. What was their next move to be?

The decision, as it happened, was taken out of her hands. Before the driver of Paradise had even shifted gears there was a great shout from behind them and the passengers all turned to discover that Comet had burst into flames.

To Connie and Mike it came as an almost inevitable climax to their wild ride over the mountains. Overheated, pushed beyond endurance, steam had been hissing from the radiator for miles. But the uproar the fire was bound to create, in an island where any kind of excitement is welcomed, was something they couldn't foretell.

This was as good as Carnival!

This was fun!

There was no question of proceeding and abandoning the afflicted bus. Such a spectacular performance deserved a cheering squad. As the factory doors were braced open and a bucket brigade began to form, the workers scrambled down from Paradise in a joyous throng. The driver pulled on his brakes, turned off the ignition, and hurried along with them, leaving his vehicle blocking all traffic on the narrow road.

Betty Cavanna's Thoughts about Connie Blair

I have been perusing old issues of The Mystery and Adventure Series Review that I purchased recently. In the Summer 1985 issue, #16, Betty Cavanna wrote a letter to the editor.

Dear Mr. Woodworth: I have recently returned from a trip to China, followed by a summer on Martha's Vineyard, to find the back issues of your very interesting and novel publication, along with your cordial letter.

I had fun writing the Connie Blair series, which was off my beaten track but attempted in an effort to improve the writing in this genre. They sold quite well in hard-cover and paperback for a number of years, but were eventually dropped when the women's lib movement accelerated to the point where children's books came under scrutiny.

Connie, alas, in one of the books apparently used her attractive appearance as a stepping stone to a better job. What a gaffe! Girls are supposed to get ahead on their own ability, never on their good looks.

I think it is both entertaining and interesting that you've reviewed the series in your magazine.

—Betty Cavanna (Mrs. Elizabeth C. Harrison)

Each author has a slightly different take on why his or her series was discontinued by Grosset and Dunlap during the 1960s. Margaret Sutton, Helen Wells, and others felt that their series were discontinued due to pressure placed upon Grosset and Dunlap by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. From the above letter, Cavanna apparently blamed it on the feminist movement.

In truth, Grosset and Dunlap was lax in its promotions for its various series. The publisher had a successful enterprise in which it did not have to do anything in order to keep making sales, particularly for the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. Lack of promotion is most likely the reason why all of the independent series ended. Ultimately, the Stratemeyer Syndicate sold the publishing rights to new titles in its series to Simon and Schuster since it was dissatisfied with Grosset and Dunlap's lack of promotion. From 1979 on, all new Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys titles have been published by Simon and Schuster. Grosset and Dunlap maintains the rights to just the original hardcover titles of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books.

Japanese Editions of Series Books Part II

To the left is a Japanese edition of a Connie Blair book. This one was left out of the previous post, and I was not about to try adding yet another image to that post. It is terribly difficult to get multiple images placed in a single blog post and have the post look even halfway decent.