Beverly Gray

The Beverly Gray Mystery Stories, comprising 26 novels published between 1934 and 1955, were written by Clair Blank, pen name of Clarissa Mabel Blank Moyer.^[1] The series began as a series of school stories, and followed Beverly's progress through college, her various romances, and a career as a reporter before becoming strictly a mystery series.

Beverly is portrayed as an extraordinarily determined individual: "There was a driving ambition in her heart that would not let her idle her life away." ^[2]

Clair Blank

Herbst Elementary School, which Blank attended before moving to Philadelphia

Clarissa Mabel Blank was born on August 5, 1915, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the only surviving child of Bessie H. and Edgar Henry Blank.^[1][3][4] Her father worked as a loom fixer at a silk mill, before finding employment at a clothing plant in Germantown;^[1] in 1920, 1930 and 1940, his occupation was listed as a "knitter."^[4][5][6] Clair attended Herbst Elementary School until she was about ten, when her family moved to the Olney section of Philadelphia.^[1] In contrast to her parents, who each completed nine years of schooling,^[6] at the age of 18 Clair had graduated from Olney High School with honors and seen the first four books in the Beverly Gray series published.^[1]

Blank attended the Peirce School of Business Administration and took a job in Philadelphia as a typist for the Keystone Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of the Atlantic Refining Company.^[1][7][8] By 1940 she had become a secretary there, and, still living with her parents, earned about $1,500 a year.^[6] She joined the American Women's Voluntary Services during World War II, driving Army officers around when they came to town.^[1] In 1941 George E. Moyer, who Clair had known growing up in Allentown, moved to Philadelphia;^[1] the two married in 1943.^[9][10] Moyer, who was a "skilled welder,"^[11] was employed at the Budd Company after his military service, where he worked on automobiles, tank construction, Chevrolet fenders, and plastics until his retirement.^[1][12] He also studied mechanical engineering, taking night classes at Drexel University.^[1] Blank gave birth to two sons, Robert and John C. Moyer, who were born in 1947 and 1953. She died on August 15, 1965; her husband died on February 27, 1998.^[12]

Best known for the Beverly Gray series, Blank also wrote the three-part Adventure Girls series, published in 1936, and, in 1940, the novel Lover Come Back.

Other works

Blank wrote four published novels in addition to the Beverly Gray books. The first three, comprising the Adventure Girls Series, were published in 1936 by A. L. Burt, Blank's then publisher for the Beverly Gray series. Though later reprinted by Saalfield, no new Adventure Girls works were ever published. In 1940, Gramercy published Blank's one and only adult novel, Lover Come Back.

The Adventure Girls

A trilogy by default, The Adventure Girls series was published by A. L. Burt in 1936 and never continued. All works were copyrighted on April 27, 1936, the same day as Beverly Gray on a World Cruise.^[13] Although a fourth work was advertised at the end of the third, it was never published; where the Beverly Gray series survived and prospered following the publication of its four part "breeder set," The Adventure Girls series was unable to catch on. Purchased by Saalfield in 1937, the series was entirely shelved until being reissued in the fall of 1942.^[14] None of the books had their copyright renewed, and all have thus passed into the public domain.

* Errantly referred to as "K-Bar-O" on the dust jacket

^† Advertised by name at the end of the third book, but never published

The Adventure Girls at K Bar O

The Adventure Girls at K Bar O introduces the six titular heroines, to wit, Gale , Carol Carter, Janet Gordon, Phyllis Elton, Madge Reynolds, and Valerie Wallace. Rising seniors at Marchton High School, the girls arrive at the K Bar O Ranch in northern Arizona at the invitation of Gale's cousin, Virginia Wilson. The ranch, owned by Virginia's father Henry Wilson, is "one of the biggest in the state," with "large" cattle herds "of the finest stock."^[15] A weeks-long camping trip on horseback pits the girls, along with Virginia's older brother Tom and ranch hand Jim, against a band of rustlers that has driven Mr. Wilson close to the point of "ruin."^[16] Scenery combines with adventure, but usually takes a back seat. Chapter nine sees the girls tour the Colorado River and Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, Monument Valley (and "El Capitan" therein), and the ruins of the Betatakin cliff dwellings. Throughout the rest of the book, various assemblages of girls foil a bank robbery (chapter 1); get uncomfortably close to a rattlesnake (chapter 3); get lost in a cave with the (recently escaped) bandits (chapter 5); narrowly avoid getting turned into "pancakes"^[17] by a boulder (chapter 7); get kidnapped (chapters 7-8); get shot at, and shoot a bandit, during escape from said kidnapping (chapter 8); rope and kill an attacking cougar (chapter 9); get kidnapped again (chapter 11); survive a ride on a runaway horse (chapter 16); get kidnapped for a third time after the bandits escape for a second time (chapter 17); and avoid another bullet (chapter 18). Tom is not quite as lucky, with chapter 19 seeing him get shot in the arm as he and the cook, Loo Wong, capture the bandits for the third and final time. For their efforts the Adventure Girls are awarded $1,000 by the sheriff. This is promptly bestowed upon Bobby, a destitute boy of "about eight,"^[18] such that he can pursue a formal education. Adventures and good deeds concluded, the girls depart back East.^{[note 1]}

For their part, the six cattle rustlers are barely distinguishable. Three are originally introduced as bank robbers (one "short" and "dark haired," a second "tall"^[20]), before later being shown to be rustlers also. Two other white bandits are later introduced; one of the five is named "Mike"^[21] and another "Shorty,"^[22] but they remain almost completely interchangeable. It is never made clear whether "Mike" and "Shorty" are the "short" and "tall" bank robbers, two of the other three bandits, or some combination thereof. The only bandit who is clearly differentiated is the sixth, introduced as Pedro. Referred to by name 25 times, as "the Mexican" or "a Mexican" 36 times, and as a "half-breed" or "the breed" 3 times, he is presented in exceptionally stereotyped fashion. Vicious and with a "slurring accent"^[23] (e.g., "I weel fin’ you and wit’ my knife I weel slash"^[24]), a "long scar ran down his cheek, making his profile even more repulsive than it would ordinarily have been."^[25]

The only other minority character in the book is treated little better. Loo Wong, "a very fine Chinese cook"^[26] employed by the ranch, is as simple as Pedro is vicious. Instructed by Gale and Valerie on how to make fudge (despite being a cook, "when it came to candy he wasn’t so artful"), he "bowed low" to the girls with "hands hidden in voluptuous sleeves" and "the grin of a delighted child on his face."^[27] More overtly, Loo Wong has a "yellow face"^[28] with "oriental pride,"^[29] and a locution marked by the addition of unnecessary 'l's.^{[note 2]} “'Missy alle same fline cook,'" he proclaims before the fudge-making lesson. “'You teach Loo Wong?'”^[28] Although generally referred to by his proper name ("Loo Wong" 45 times, and "Wong" 6 times), in five instances he is instead "the Chinaman." As with the term "half-breed," in 1936 "Chinaman," while still seeing contemporary usage, was declining in popularity as it became more commonly thought of as a slur.^[33]

The Adventure Girls in the Air

The Adventure Girls in the Air picks up with the six girls in their senior year at Marchton High School. The book involves two distinct narrative arcs. The first nine chapters involve the attempt by Brent Stockton, a pilot and inventor, to perfect a new airplane motor, and the attempts by enemies to steal his designs. Chapters ten through sixteen detail a plane crash resulting in Gale's disappearance, amnesia, and rediscovery. The book then concludes with five chapters narrating the end of the school year and preparations for college.

The novel opens on the beach, where the girls and three male companions—Bruce Latimer, David Kimball, and Peter Arnold—watch a "shining red monoplane" doing aerobatics above the Atlantic Ocean. After it crashes on nearby Cloudy Island (chapter 1), Gale, Phyllis and Bruce rush over, discovering a pilot with a sprained ankle and desire to remain for some weeks, anonymously, in a log cabin on the island. Brent Stockton, as it turns out, is a pilot and inventor of about "twenty-three" who is developing a "more or less foolproof" airplane motor that will be more fuel efficient and "most economical." An unknown competitor has attempted three times to steal Brent's plans, including "a bold attempt on [his] life." The following chapters involve more such attempts, leading to Bruce being punched (chapter 4) and the airplane hanger being subject to a bomb attempt (chapter 6) and an armed break-in by two men (chapter 7). These attempts are to no avail. Brent's plane wins a race, setting him up to sell his patent to the United States Government and accept a job in Washington, D.C. with the Transcontinental Air Line Company. His enemies, meanwhile, "after that one last attempt, seemed to fade into obscurity." Except for one glancing reference at the end of the ninth chapter ("The plane had come through and defeated all Brent’s enemies"), they are inexplicably never mentioned again.

The disappearance of Brent's enemies, and their complete lack of mention thereafter, brings about a dramatic plot shift. Brent flies Gale and her father, a "successful" lawyer, to visit a client in Quebec. Gale and Brent return the next day while Mr. Howard stays behind for another night. Despite being "one of the best pilots there is," Brent forgets to fill up on gas before leaving Quebec and crashes in the woods (chapter 10). He leaves to get help for a trapped and unconscious Gale, who, it develops, now suffers from amnesia. She is discovered and taken in by François and Antoinette Bouchard, French Canadian siblings living in a small "farmhouse" in the woods. While Gale's friends search frantically for her, the Bouchards are unable to alert the world to her presence. As François explains it, "I injured my foot [splitting logs], and I have not been able to go to the village to notify the authorities. My sister knows very little about such things.” This does not prevent Antoinette from taking Gale into the village; rather, she simply avoids telling anyone about Gale's background, and apparently nobody thinks to ask who the stranger is. Gale is eventually discovered (chapter 13), but this still leaves time for her to spend a night lost in the woods (chapter 15) and have her memory restored by a fall off a 20 foot cliff (chapter 16). Once back in Marchton, Gale accepts Brent's proposal at Senior Prom (chapter 19), and the girls trick Phyllis's "positive tyrant" of an aunt into allowing Phyllis to attend college at Briarhurst with the other five (chapter 20). The next and final chapter sees Gale and Bruce trapped on Cloudy Island during a storm, and the book ends on an anti-climactic note as they await rescuers from the mainland.

The Adventure Girls in the Air was written extremely quickly, possibly in less than three weeks. A January 17, 1936 letter from A. L. Burt acknowledges receipt of the manuscript for The Adventure Girls at K Bar O, and asks "how soon could we have two additional stories . . . ?"^[1] 25 days later, on February 11, another letter declared The Adventure Girls in the Air "an absolutely interesting story, and especially delightful [is] the description of life in the Canadian woods."^[1] This breakneck pace perhaps explains some of the plot holes and oversights in the story. The book features a series of narrative arcs, which are concluded and forgotten in succession; Brent's enemies disappear halfway through the book, and, after Gale's amnestic saga, the book turns to the more mundane aspects of high school life. Lines are repeated, and sometimes contradict each other. "The wheels were sticking grotesquely up into the air" is used twice, verbatim, to describe the plane crash in the first chapter and that in the tenth. Gale attests to Brent's prodigious aviation skills in the eighth chapter, asking "[d]idn’t he fly that anti-toxin up to Alaska to those Eskimos last year and save hundreds of lives?" but three chapters later, Peter suggests the pilot was someone else: “Airplanes have saved hundreds of lives. Look at the time that aviator flew that serum to those Eskimos up north.” Meanwhile, Gale spends much of chapter 18, "Studies," attempting to learn poetry, which previously "awoke no interest in her whatever." Yet despite the fact that before this point "[s]he had not liked any of the poets," when talking about love with Brent in chapter six she quotes the poem How Do I Love Thee?. "'[D]id you ever read Elizabeth Browning?'" Gale asks Brent. "'She says—"I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!" I always thought—maybe—I should love someone like that some day.'" Blank's trilogy was slated "for early spring publication," and it was written on a tight schedule.^[1] After The Adventure Girls in the Air was reviewed on February 11, A. L. Burt asked for the third volume to be ready "a little sooner" than the first week of March.^[1] The trilogy was evidently ready by the end of April, and it seems that editing, by both author and publisher, was de-emphasized to make this happen.

The Adventure Girls at Happiness House

The Adventure Girls at Happiness House is the third and final published work in this series. The book finds the six girls at Briarhurst College, where they have just arrived to begin their Freshman year. The college has a new dean, and the main plot revolves around the efforts of an unknown individual to hurt or possibly kill her. A subplot center on Phyllis, who breaks her leg and is never to walk again without an operation, and on her unknown father, who is discovered to be a famous surgeon.

After arriving at Briarhurst College, the girls soon learn that newly instated Dean Travis is an unpopular force on campus. Opposition to her plans, which include "new laboratories for the Chemistry classes, a new organ for the chapel, stables and horses to teach the girls riding and a few other such things," seems to be highest among the girls who enjoyed "special privileges" under the old dean, but at least one person is particularly violent. Gale's introduction to the new dean comes when she saves her canoe, rope cut and set adrift, from going over a waterfall (chapter 2). Suspicious events continue. Chapter 4 alone sees the dean sent poisoned candy, have her curtains set on fire, and, with Gale, narrowly avoid a vial of acid tossed from a window. Two chapters later, college funds are reported stolen from the safe and a typewritten note warning the girls "Do not interfere in affairs that are none of your concern" is slipped under Gale's door. Soon thereafter the dean and Gale barely escape a pile of falling lumber after Phyllis pushes them out of the way, crushing her leg in the process (chapter 7).

A number of characters are suggested as suspicious. “I heard that one of the Chemistry teachers is sending the Dean candy and flowers," says Janet, and Phyllis tries to draw a link between a professor and the poisoned candy: “Chemistry Professor, acid, poisoned candy—they all fit together.” Gale exerts her efforts by turning "all the girls into Sherlock Holmeses" to find the typewriter used to create the warning note. Coming back to her room one day, she discovers her room to have been ransacked. “Someone was hunting for that note, I’ll wager," she opines. The mystery deepens when Gale tests the dean's own typewriter and finds it to produce type identical to that on the warning note. Meanwhile, when she investigates the pile of lumber that toppled over earlier, she is surprised by a "man’s figure" with "hat pulled low . . . and a long overcoat with collar turned up completely." Seeing Gale, the man flees.  

Dean Travis's enemy is ultimately unmasked by Gale. Visiting the chemistry department "to see Professor Lukens about our Chemistry assignment," she observes the dean's secretary, Miss Horton, taking a vial from a locked cabinet. Gale follows her back to the dean's office and catches her mixing the substance into a glass of water and telling someone over the phone that "Sarah—you will be Dean of Briarhurst someday." Confronted, the secretary confesses. “Yes, I meant to poison [the dean],” she says. "'If it hadn’t been for her my sister would be Dean of Briarhurst. She worked years to have the position, she studied in Europe, everything to fit herself for this. Then you came along,' the girl said to Dean Travis, 'and were appointed. It nearly broke my sister’s heart.'" She then adds in an aside that she was also the one who stole money from the safe. "I meant to put it back," she says, "but I couldn’t right away. Now you will probably send me to prison.” The dean, despite nearly having been murdered, is exceptionally forgiving. She "smiled in sympathetic understanding. 'No, but if you return the money, pack your things and leave tonight, we will forget the whole incident.'" The mystery is thus solved, and indeed forgotten. Left unresolved is both the question of whether (and if so, why) Miss Horton really was earlier poisoned by candy intended for the dean, and also the identity of the mysterious man in "a long overcoat." As to the latter, "we will probably never know," Gale declares. Miss Horton "must have had someone with her."  

Characters

* No speaking lines in book

^† Mentioned in book, but does not appear or speak

Lover Come Back

Lover Come Back dust jacket (Gramercy, 1940)

Representing Blank's short lived foray into adult literature, Lover Come Back was published in 1940 by Gramercy. It does not appear to have ever been reprinted in novel form, although notifications in The Pittsburgh Press suggest that it was printed in a "Complete Novel Section" therein on April 13, 1941.^[34][35] As a result of this limited print run, Lover Come Back is Blank's scarcest published novel.

Lover Come Back echoes the Beverly Gray series in both plot and writing style. Just as Beverly Gray is a successful screenwriter, playwright, novelist and reporter for the Herald Tribune, Beverly Norcot shares the same vocations (and success) and reports for "the Times" (likely The New York Times). Lover Come Back features a plot driven by events and coincidence. "In its series of mini-climaxes strung together, the book is a soap opera." The book's "major ingredients" consist of:

"3 auto accidents (2 human, 1 canine)
2 shootings
1 emergency appendectomy
3 witnessing[s] by jealous suitor of girlfriend embracing another man
3 reversals of fortune (1 downward, 2 upward)
2 sudden disappearances of of boyfriends out of the country
4 unexpected reunions of same with girls
numerous reversals of feeling between lovers
frequent dashing around by characters in cars, ships, and a plane
multiple rendezvous at society parties [and] swanky nightclubs"^[36]

Beverly Gray, too, leads "such a life of adventure as would tax the resources of any soap opera heroine." Across the series, Beverly is "kidnapped no less than twenty-six times, attacked by wild animals seven times, trapped in three violent storms, imperiled by three earthquakes, shot at twice (wounded once)." She also suffers "a car crash, flowing lava, a flood, a drugging, a rampaging fire, a plane crash and other assorted tribulations."^[37]

Books

*This title was later dropped from the series

Beverly Gray at the World's Fair

1933-34 Chicago World's Fair poster

Beverly Gray at the World's Fair, the sixth work by Blank, was issued for a short window from 1935 to 1938 before being dropped from the series. After Grosset & Dunlap acquired the rights to the Beverly Gray books in 1938, publication of World's Fair was ceased due to fears that it would date the series. As a result of this limited printing run it is the scarcest of the 26 books.

As suggested by the title, World's Fair was set at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair. Beverly travels with a coterie of friends to Chicago, where, between touring the exhibitions and warding off an escaped lion, she helps solve the murder of a diver shot at the fair. Originally published only a year after the fair ended, when released the book brought to bear recent memories; by the time Grosset & Dunlap acquired the Beverly Gray series in 1938, however, the Chicago World's Fair was receding further into the past and preparations had begun for the 1939–40 New York World's Fair. "Because [Beverly Gray at the World's Fair] specifically referred to the Chicago Fair and work on the New York Fair was underway," Blank's editor wrote to her in a 1941 letter, "we felt that readers might be disappointed to discover that Beverly had been to the old fair - not the New York one." As a general policy, her editor went on, when Grosset foresaw "a long and steady sale," it sought to "avoid having anything in the stories that might date them."^[14] This policy would not prove to withstand the entry by the United States into World War II, but was sufficient to end publication of the original sixth work in the Beverly Gray series. The original seventh and eighth works, Beverly Gray on a World Cruise and Beverly Gray in the Orient, were renumbered 6 and 7. Beverly Gray on a Treasure Hunt, the first work published by Grosset, became book number 8.

For collectors of the Beverly Gray series, World's Fair is generally the most challenging and expensive book to acquire. It's expense, however, somewhat belies it's true scarcity. From 1935 to 1937 Word's Fair went through multiple printings by A. L. Burt, before being reprinted by Blue Ribbon Books from 1937-38. It is thus theoretically no scarcer than any other Beverly Gray A. L Burt or Blue Ribbon edition, (excepting the first four works, which began printing one year earlier), and considerably more common than certain other series published by A. L. Burt.

International editions

From 1944 until 1970, translations of several Beverly Gray books were published in Iceland and in Norway.^[38][39] Twelve works were initially published by the Icelandic publisher Norðri. The first of these, Beverly Gray nýliði (Freshman), was translated by Gudjon Gudjonsson, with the eleven succeeding titles translated by Kristmundur Bjarnason. The first four translations (Freshman through Senior) were later reprinted by another Icelandic publisher, Iðunn. Either intentionally or mistakenly, both Norðri and Iðunn used the pen name "Clarie Blank" rather than Blank's true first name. Between the publication and republication of these Icelandic translations, seven Norwegian titles were issued by the publisher Forlagshuset.

Dust jacket to Beverly Gray í III bekk (Iðunn, 1969)

Icelandic titles

*Although the books were numbered, no #8 was ever issued for an unknown reason.

Norwegian titles

Publication history

The Beverly Gray series was published in the United States from 1934 to 1955. Four publishers were responsible for the series output during this time: A. L. Burt (1934-1937), Blue Ribbon Books (1937-1938), Grosset & Dunlap (1938-1954) and McLoughlin Bros. (1955).

A.L. Burt (1934-1937)

A.L. Burt was responsible for publishing the first eight titles in the series, from Beverly Gray, Freshman through Beverly Gray in the Orient. The first four titles were copyrighted on June 1, 1934^[40] and issued concurrently as a "breeder set," a common practice at the time.^[41] Books five and six (Career and World's Fair) followed in similar fashion, both copyrighted on June 14, 1934,^[42] while the next two works followed in yearly intervals. Although A. L. Burt's president retired and sold the company to Blue Ribbon Books in early March 1937,^[43] the copyright for the final book published by A. L. Burt, Beverly Gray in the Orient, was actually issued on April 15 of that year.^[44]

The A.L. Burt editions had a uniform appearance. Approximately 8 inches tall and 1.5 inches thick, they were composed of grey cloth boards with black lettering, and supplied with light blue endpapers with an etching of village buildings. The publisher was denoted on the lower spine as "A. L. BURT/COMPANY."

Blue Ribbon Books (1937-1938)

Blue Ribbon Books announced the purchase of A. L. Burt on March 4, 1937. Robert de Graff, president of Blue Ribbon from May 28 of the previous year^[45] until February of the next,^[46][47] described the purchase as "supplementary," bringing together "the fiction list of the A. L. Burt Company and the non-fiction books issued under the Blue Ribbon imprint."^[43] Taking over approximately 2,000 titles from A. L. Burt, Blue Ribbon indicated their intention to continue "the Burt name" on "fiction and juvenile titles";^[47] each Beverly Gray book was thus referred to as "A Burt Book" on the title page. The company had to that point been a reprint specialist, and, at least vis-à-vis the Beverly Gray series, its specialty did not change. No new titles were commissioned for the series by Blue Ribbon, although from 1937 to 1938 they reprinted the eight works already issued by A. L. Burt. From April 15, 1937 (Orient, A. L. Burt) until October 15, 1938^[48] (Treasure Hunt, Grosset & Dunlap) it would be seventeen months until another Beverly Gray book was copyrighted.

The initial Beverly Gray books issued by Blue Ribbon used the same stock as the A. L. Burt editions. The books were bound in cloth boards of the same color and size, while the copyright remained under the name of A. L. Burt. The only changes were to the spine, where "B U R T" replaced "A. L. BURT/COMPANY," and to the title page, where "A Burt Book/BLUE RIBBON BOOKS, Inc./New York" replaced "A. L. BURT COMPANY, publishers/New York Chicago."

Blue Ribbon began using colored boards after the initial printing runs with grey boards, perhaps reflecting the exhaustion of binding materials acquired from A. L. Burt. The size and composition of the books remained the same. The first printings without grey boards were probably those with boards of a light pinkish-purple color and light blue endpapers. At least three titles—Sophomore, Senior and Orient—were printed in this format, and others may exist. Subsequent printings used a variety of different colors, and switched to dark blue endpapers. Blue boards were used for Freshman, green (black lettering) for Sophomore, green (purple lettering) for Junior, and red for Career. As a general (but not necessarily absolute) rule, each format was unique to one title. If not intentional, this may have reflected a practice of printing each book individually whenever stocks ran low, and using whatever binding materials were on hand at the time.

McLoughlin Bros. (1955)

In June 1954, Grosset & Dunlap purchased "the complete stock and goodwill of McLoughlin Bros," a "publisher of toy books since 1828."^{[49][50][51][52]} McLoughlin thereafter became "a division of Grosset & Dunlap,"^[53] with the Clover Books imprint used to publish the Beverly Gray series.

McLoughlin printed Beverly Gray's Surprise, the final work in the series, in 1955. It additionally reprinted the previous nine books (Journey through Scoop), which had originally been issued by Grosset & Dunlap. The ten books were numbered from G-16 (Journey) to G-25 (Surprise), with G-1 through G-15, representing the books not reprinted by McLoughlin, left unassigned.

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Abreu, John E. (May 1984). "Beverly Gray, Juvenile Soap: A Golden Anniversary Retrospective (part 1)". Yellowback Library.
• Abreu, John E. (July 1984). "Beverly Gray, Juvenile Soap: A Golden Anniversary Retrospective (part 2)". Yellowback Library.
• Allcock, Doug (June 2009). "A Peek at Beverly Gray." Yellowback Library.
• Axe, John (July 2000). The Secret of Collecting Girls' Series Books. Hobby House Press. ISBN 978-0875885773.
• Axe, John (July 2002). All About Collecting Girls' Series Books. Hobby House Press. ISBN 978-0875886350.
• Bourke, Sean (July 1995). "American Juvenile Series Books in European Editions". Yellowback Library.
• Chenu, Julius "Bob" (Jan 1982). "Beverly Gray Series, by Clair Blank". Yellowback Library.
• Enright, John M. (Mar 1990). "It's Gray, It Has Two Legs, And It Travels Around the World". Mystery & Adventure Series Review.
• Grossman, Anita Susan (Jan 1989). "Mystery of Clair Blank". Yellowback Library.
• Grossman, Anita Susan (Dec 1989). "Clair Blank and Her Publishers: A Look at the Written Record". Yellowback Library.
• Grossman, Anita Susan (April 1994). "A Note on McLoughlin Brothers and Clover Books". Yellowback Library.
• Grossman, Anita Susan (October 1998). "Lover Come Back: A Synopsis Of Clair Blank's Forgotten Novel". The Whispered Watchword.

External links

• The Adventure Girls at Project Gutenberg

Juvenile Series books (1930–1979) Girls' books Beverly Gray (1934–1955) Cherry Ames (1943–1968) Connie Blair (1948–1956) Dana Girls (1934–1979) Ginny Gordon (1948–1956) Judy Bolton (1932–1967) Kay Tracey (1934–1942) Nancy Drew (original series, 1930–1979) Penny Parker (1939–1947) Sue Barton (1936–1952) Trixie Belden (1948–1986) Vicki Barr (1947–1967) The Happy Hollisters (1953–1970) Boys' books Biff Brewster (1960–1965) Brains Benton (1959–1961) Bronc Burnett (1948–1967) Christopher Cool (1967–1969) Danny Dunn (1956–1977) Chip Hilton (1948–1965) The Hardy Boys (1927–1979) Ken Holt (1949–1963) The Happy Hollisters (1953–1970) Power Boys (1964–1967) Rick Brant (1947–1968) Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1952–1956) Tom Quest (1947–1955) Tom Swift, Jr. (1954–1971)