The Prettiest Ceramic Christmas Tree

This beautiful tree was purchased one week ago. It cost $14.00 and was worth every cent! It is big, gaudy, and pretty. I do believe I like it the very best of all of the trees that I have ever purchased. The tree stands approximately 21 inches tall and is approximately 14 inches wide at its widest point. Whenever I photograph these trees for this blog, they all end up looking about the same. There is no way to truly appreciate their differences without seeing them in person. This one is wonderful! Even though this isn't the holiday season, I decided to have it lit for the duration of the Memorial Day weekend. This tree is too nice to wait until later this year to enjoy it!

Beverly Gray's Move to Grosset and Dunlap

A. L. Burt published the first eight Beverly Gray books from 1934 through 1937. In early 1937, A. L. Burt was sold to Blue Ribbon Books, and this made Beverly Gray's future uncertain. At first, Blue Ribbon Books informed Clair Blank that they would continue to publish the Beverly Gray series, but by the end of 1937 the company suggested that Clair Blank offer her series to another publisher.

Clair Blank did indeed contact other publishers, including Reilly and Lee. Reilly and Lee was not interested, so Clair contacted Cupples and Leon, which was very interested. The company would probably have published the Beverly Gray books, but Clair learned that Blue Ribbon Books had suddenly decided to sell its entire catalog of juvenile series books. Beverly Gray had been sold to Grosset and Dunlap.

It is interesting that the Beverly Gray series went to Grosset and Dunlap, because most of the A. L. Burt catalog was either never published again or was sold to either Saalfield or World. The series books that went to Saalfield or World, such as Clair Blank's Adventure Girls Series, ceased to have new titles. Saalfield and World did not have the budgets to pay for new titles; they were strictly reprint houses.

Any series that went to Saalfield or World is not very difficult to find today due to the many reprints, but the downside is that those series did end with the titles published by Burt. Some series, such as the Girl Scouts Mystery Series by Virginia Fairfax, were not sold to another publisher and disappeared from print. This is why the Fairfax books are now so scarce and elusive.

The Girls Scouts Series by Edith Lavell is another series that Burt published that disappeared after Blue Ribbon Books dissolved the Burt catalog. The Linda Carlton Series by Edith Lavell was sold to Saalfield, but only the first three titles were reprinted by Saalfield. Volume 4, Linda Carlton's Perilous Summer, and volume 5, Linda Carlton's Hollywood Flight, are exceedingly scarce (rare would unquestionably apply to these two books) and nearly impossible to find since they were only published by Burt.

It is because Beverly Gray was sold to Grosset and Dunlap rather than to Saalfield or World that the series continued to be published. If Blue Ribbon Books had sold the rights to either Saalfield or World, there would have been no more new titles. Clair Blank contacted Saalfield to ask whether they would be publishing new Adventure Girls books, and she was told that they were not interested. The answer would have surely been the same if Beverly Gray had been sold to Saalfield.

Beverly Gray was the A. L. Burt Company's best-selling series aside from the Famous Books for Young Americans. This fact was stated by Clair Blank's old editor in a letter that was reprinted in Yellowback Library No. 66. It must have been because Beverly Gray was the best-selling A. L. Burt series that it was purchased by Grosset and Dunlap.

It is indeed fortunate that Grosset and Dunlap purchased Beverly Gray and continued to print new titles each year. The series ultimately lasted for a total of 26 volumes. Grosset and Dunlap may not have given Beverly Gray the best cover art and may not have treated her as well as they could have, but at least they gave her a home and kept her around for nearly 20 more years after the demise of A. L. Burt.

The 1940s Grosset and Dunlap Formats

In reflecting over the different format changes of the old Grosset and Dunlap books, it becomes apparent that Grosset and Dunlap gave Nancy Drew the best treatment. This is probably partly because of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's ownership of Nancy Drew and partly because Nancy Drew was Grosset and Dunlap best moneymaker.

The Nancy Drew books always had the best illustrations. I can think of no juvenile series that had nicer illustrations than the 1930s Nancy Drew books done by Russell Tandy. Additionally, the Nancy Drew books always had frontispiece illustrations, even during the 1940s. Grosset and Dunlap did everything it could to cut costs during the 1940s, such as taking many series out of print, including the Dana Girls. Grosset and Dunlap eliminated the frontispieces from many series books. Some of the Judy Bolton and Beverly Gray books from the 1940s were printed without the frontispieces. I have never seen a Nancy Drew book without a frontispiece.

Also during the 1940s, Grosset and Dunlap used a wide variety of bindings on its series books. What they probably did was use the bindings intended for one series on another series. For instance, the blue Nancy Drew bindings were used on some of the Beverly Gray books; or, the green Bobbsey Twins bindings were used on some of the Judy Bolton or Beverly Gray books. The Stratemeyer Syndicate series books do not seem to have as many binding variations as the independent series books. The bindings of the Nancy Drew books were always blue. The Beverly Gray books from the same time period were light green, medium green, dark green, medium blue, dark blue, maroon, and red. The Judy Bolton books were light green, medium green, dark green, orange, and red.

The Nancy Drew endpapers stayed pretty consistent during the 1940s. The one inconsistency was when the maroon Dana Girls endpapers were used on the Nancy Drew books. Of course, the Dana Girls endpapers were only used because the Dana Girls went out of print and something had to be done with those leftover endpapers . . .

These have been my thoughts as I have been looking over my Beverly Gray books this weekend. With me, to think is to act, so I have been busy building a Beverly Gray Formats page. I did not realize that there were so many different colors of binding used on the Beverly Gray books during the 1940s! I noticed the lack of frontispieces inside some of the books and realized that Beverly Gray was like an unwanted stepchild. The Beverly Gray dust jacket art was pitiful during the 1940s. Beverly Gray deserved much better, but we are very lucky that the series even survived the move to Grosset and Dunlap. She nearly didn't make it. Beverly Gray's fortuitous move to Grosset and Dunlap might be a good topic for my next post.

Another Ceramic Christmas Tree

This ceramic Christmas tree was purchased last week. It cost only $2.00 plus tax. Most of the lights were still present, so I had to replace only around six of them. Including the base, the tree stands 13 1/2 inches tall. Without the base, the tree stands 11 inches tall.

For newer readers of this blog, my interest in ceramic trees began when I found one in a thrift store and was struck by how similar it was to the ceramic tree on the cover of the Judy Bolton mystery, The Secret of the Musical Tree. I buy my ceramic Christmas trees exclusively in thrift stores, where I find that they consistently underprice them. These trees can easily sell for $20.00 and up on eBay.

Interesting Theory about Series Book Authors

In Issue 32 of The Mystery and Adventure Series Review, Fred Woodworth makes an interesting point. He mentions how, since he is in the printing business, he is aware of many instances in which a customer will pay someone to complete a print job and that person will farm the job out to someone else. The customer pays one person for the job and is unaware that the actual work was completed by someone else.

Woodworth makes the following comments:

A good guide in writing is style, and if several books sparkle and then two ludicrously dull-witted duds follow, all shown to be, by publisher's records, by the same author, then believe your own mind, not those records. If an author who cannot write at all suddenly, late in a series, produces two masterpieces in a row, assume a subcontractor.

Mainly, remember this: the truth is slippery. This is not to say that you can't get at it, but it IS to say that you don't stand a chance at all of getting at it unless you use YOUR OWN brain rather than someone else's. Be an independent thinker and a lone voyager, not a follower or a thought-commuter packed into an ignominious bus going in the common—and invariably wrong—direction.

In Issue 31, there was an article about the last 10 titles in the Beverly Gray series. The reviewer had no idea whether Clair Blank was a pseudonym for one or more than one person, and pointed out that some of the stories are uneven. For instance, a few of them have the usual extremely large cast of characters, and the reviewer expressed his disgust about their aimless wanderings in The Susabella. The comments about the accursed, idiotic boat were rather funny, and the reviewer expressed glee when the boat made its final voyage.

But I digress. The reviewer believed that the final volumes were written by more than one person since Beverly Gray's Secret and Beverly Gray's Island Mystery did not have the usual cast of characters, and Beverly worked primarily alone. What we now know that that Clair Blank was a real person who wrote the entire series—as far as we know. However, after reading the comments in both issues, I do have to wonder, what if? What if Clair Blank had someone else write a couple of books?

We do know of two instances in which the final volume of a series was not written by the person who received credit. Betty Cavanna stated that she did not write the final Connie Blair book, The Mystery of the Ruby Queens, but instead contracted to have someone else write it for her. We also know that the final Vicki Barr book, The Brass Idol Mystery, was written by Walter Gibson rather than by Helen Wells for the same reason.

The idea that the Beverly Gray books may not have all been written by Clair Blank is certainly something to consider. In fact, there is at least one instance in which the name of one of the major characters is incorrect. I have always passed it off as a just a random editorial mistake, but there is always a chance that it could have been something more. It is something to consider.

An Obituary for Harriet Adams

Today, I found a newspaper clipping of an obituary for Harriet Stratemeyer Adams tucked inside a Nancy Drew book.  Harriet Adams was the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer and took over the running of the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1930 when her father died.  Mrs. Adams ran the Syndicate until her death in 1982.

During the 1970s, Mrs. Adams was very vocal about her role in writing the Nancy Drew books.  She claimed to be the author of all of the original 56 books, and her statements annoyed many people who knew that a few other people, including Mildred Wirt Benson, had written many of the manuscripts from outlines supplied by the Syndicate.  In fact, as I have been reading the editorials in various issues of The Mystery and Adventure Series Review from the 1980s, I have read quite a few bitter comments that some collectors made about Harriet Adams.

To get back to the obituary—needless to say, it has some glaring errors due to the statements that Mrs. Adams had made in the preceding years.  The clipping is from Monday, March 29, 1982, and Mrs. Adams had passed away on Saturday, March 27, 1982.  The text of the obituary follows (click on the image to read directly from the clipping):

Harriet S. Adams, who wrote nearly 200 children's books carrying on the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and other series created by her father, died of a heart attack.

The Maplewood, N.J., resident was 89.

Mrs. Adams, who died Saturday night, was honored as mother of the year in 1979 but was better known by millions of readers as Carolyn Keene, the author of the Nancy Drew mysteries.

She inherited a flair for fiction from her father, Edward Stratemeyer, one of the most prolific writers of all time.

Her father wrote under many pseudonyms and was the creator of Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, the Hardy Boys, Don Sturdy, Honey Bunch and even Nancy Drew, who was the heroine of three of his mystery novels.

His daughter later revised the three Nancy Drew books and then wrote all of the remaining novels featuring the young girl detective.

Carrying on her father's other series, Mrs. Adams also wrote under the pen name of Franklin W. Dixon for the Hardy Boys, Victor W. Appleton II for Tom Swift Jr., and Laura Lee Hope for the Bobbsey Twins.

In writing the Nancy Drew novels Mrs. Adams stuck to the cliff-hanger approach.

It was a successful formula for 50 years and more than 70 million copies of the books had been sold in the United States alone.  The Nancy Drew stories were translated into more than a dozen languages.

Mrs. Adams was born in Newark, N.J. on Dec. 6, 1894.  While attending Wellesley College, she worked as a student reporter for the Boston Globe.  A year after graduation from Wellesley in 1914, she married Russell V. Adams, an investment banker.

Stratemeyer died in 1930 and Mrs. Adams, who had been busy bringing up her children, immediately began working on the Nancy Drew series.

It has never bothered me that Mrs. Adams claimed more of the credit than perhaps she was due.  To Mrs. Adams, Nancy Drew was like her daughter, and she was very protective of Nancy Drew.  By the time Mrs. Adams was in her 80s, she very well may have convinced herself that she had written all of the original versions of the stories as well as the rewrites.

Additionally, as the head of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, it was Harriet Adams' duty to protect the interests of the Syndicate.  Since the Syndicate retained sole ownership of the stories, it was not in the Syndicate's interest for it to be known that many of the stories had been written by other people.  The point I'm making that I am very open-minded, and I do see Mrs. Adams' side of the story.

I feel that all of the people who contributed to the success of the Nancy Drew series were important.  Edward Stratemeyer created the series; Mildred Wirt Benson wrote most of the early books; Walter Karig wrote three of the early books; and Harriet Adams revised all of the original stories and wrote all of the new stories from the 1950s until her death in 1982.  Of all of these people, I feel that Harriet Adams' contribution was more significant than the others, simply because she kept the Nancy Drew series going for more than 50 years.  While she claimed too much credit, she rightfully deserved a large amount of credit for Nancy Drew's success.

While I am a big fan of Mildred Wirt Benson and feel that her influence on the early Nancy Drew books was significant and lasting, I have been concerned in recent years that Harriet Adams has been completely forgotten.  There are some people who feel that Mildred Wirt Benson deserves all of the credit for Nancy Drew's success.  Others say that it was Edward Stratemeyer who thought up the idea.  I want people also to remember the woman who kept the series going, who seems now to be all but forgotten.

April 2008 Penny Parker eBay Prices

Here are some recent prices for Penny Parker books on eBay:

#2 The Vanishing Houseboat, no DJ, $4.99
#3 Danger at the Drawbridge w/DJ, $33.29
#3 Danger at the Drawbridge, no DJ, $9.99
#4 Behind the Green Door w/DJ, $19.43
#5 Clue of the Silken Ladder w/DJ, $33.57
#7 The Clock Strikes Thirteen w/DJ, $43.57
#8 The Wishing Well w/DJ, $60.99
#9 Ghost Beyond the Gate w/DJ, $29.88
#10 Saboteurs on the River w/DJ, $12.72
#10 Saboteurs on the River, no DJ, $9.49
#12 Voice from the Cave w/DJ $36.79
#13 Guilt of the Brass Thieves w/DJ, $37.92
#16 Swamp Island, no DJ, $33.00
#16 Swamp Island, no DJ, $13.00

I have noticed that the Penny Parker books come up for sale far less often than they did around 5 to 6 years ago. The dust jackets have become particularly difficult to find. Most of these prices are lower than what I would normally expect to see.

April 2008 Judy Bolton eBay Prices

There was a group of Judy Bolton auctions that ended this month in which the prices realized were outrageously high. They were higher than what we have seen in years and were reminiscent of eBay prices from around 7 to 10 years ago.

#33 The Secret Quest w/DJ, $480.00
#34 The Puzzle in the Pond w/DJ, $480.00, $66.78
#29 The Clue of the Broken Wing w/DJ, $279.00
#30 The Phantom Friend w/DJ, $265.00
#23 The Black Cat's Clue w/DJ, $192.50
#21 The Clue of the Stone Lantern w/DJ, $167.50
#25 The Haunted Road w/DJ, $157.50
#26 The Clue in the Ruined Castle w/DJ, $142.50
#33 The Secret Quest w/DJ, $100.00
#31 The Discovery at the Dragon's Mouth w/DJ, $96.00
#28 The Haunted Fountain w/DJ, $70.01
#32 The Whispered Watchword w/DJ, $55.22
#37 The Search for the Glowing Hand, $51.02
#36 The Pledge of the Twin Knights, $41.00
#24 The Forbidden Chest w/DJ, $37.49
#22 The Spirit of Fog Island w/DJ, $34.33
#27 The Trail of the Green Doll w/DJ, $32.05

What happened is that one person placed an early bid on each book, and this person's bid was extremely high. It was probably what we like to call a nuclear bid—a bid that is so high that no one can beat it. The person that did this probably has a high income and does not care how much the books end up costing. The second highest bidder continued to bid on the books, trying to outbid the first bidder. This is how a couple of books ended up at $480.00. Bidder #2 finally gave up and let Bidder #1 have them.