Collectors of vintage paperback mystery fiction will know all about Dell mapbacks, those cute little paperbacks with the crime scene maps on the back covers. According to Wikipedia there were at least 550 titles in the series between 1943 and 1951, mostly mysteries. But did you know that #1 through #4 did not have maps on the back? So they were not really in any way mapbacks. I have the first two, the first of which is Death in the Library by Philip Ketchum, a really obscure choice it would seem for the first Dell not-mapback. The second is Dead or Alive by Patricia Wentworth, which oddly is I think the only time Dell ever published her work. (She was mostly published in the US in pb by Popular Library.)
#4 was Ellery Queen's The American Gun Mystery, later reissued with a map. But I don't know what #3 was. Now it's been bugging me. Does anyone out there know? Please tell me!
Murder-on-Hudson /
ReplyDeleteJennifer Jones
I have never even heard of that one, wow.
DeleteI just found it by searching on worldcat/oclc. As bibliographic authority they list:"Lyles, W.H. Dell paperbacks, 1942 to mid-1962,; page 25; Reginald, R. Cumulative paperback index, 1939-1959,; page 110". Worldcat also lists two earlier books with same title/author: Crowell in 1937 and red arrow books in 1939.
DeleteWell, I ordered it. At first I thought it was ghost written for the actress. But yeah it was published in 37 originally.
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