Mapback
Encyclopedia
Paperback
Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series. Mapbacks extend from #5 to at least #550; then maps became less of a fixed feature of the books and disappeared entirely in 1951. (Numbers 1 through 4 had no map, although a later re-publication of #4, The American Gun Mystery
The American Gun Mystery
The American Gun Mystery is a novel that was written in 1933 by Ellery Queen. It is the sixth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.-Plot summary:...
by Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
, added a map.) The occasional number in the series between #5 and #550 contains no map, but some sort of full-page graphic or text connected with the book's contents.
The artwork of the maps began with quite detailed maps, and later numbers contain more stylized ones. "The back cover map was very popular with readers and remains popular with collectors ... the Dell "mapbacks" are among the most well known vintage paperbacks."
"Dell's most memorable design innovation was not on the front but on the back covers ... the entire back covers given over to maps, or variously charts, blueprints, or what have you to represent story locale or scene of the crime: a stretch of California highway, the interior of an apartment, a sheik's "city of stones". It was an enjoyable if slightly goofy gimmick and, amazingly, managed to last nearly ten years."
Other Features
"Besides distinctive front covers and back-cover maps, Dell paperbacks also had a number of other interesting features, including an "eye-in-keyhole" logo, front-cover blurbs, character lists, lists of key items or events in the book ("tantalizer-pages"), crowded title pages, and special chapter titles."Some publishers, including Dell, thoughtfully included brief lists of the main characters in their books -- especially in mysteries -- to allow readers to keep the characters straight. In mapbacks, "Persons this Mystery is about" followed the inside flyleaf, and gave a short descriptive paragraph. For instance, the protagonist of the mapback shown at right is described as follows:
- "Rogan Kincaid, a gambler, tall, lean, enigmatic and attractive to women, believes there is a logical explanation for everything, but is ready to change his mind after witnessing some of the goings-on at Cabrioun, an isolated hunting lodge near the Canadian border."
The "tantalizer-pages" contained two features meant to entice the browsing reader. "What this Mystery is about" gives a list of clues and events that are found within. Those from Rim of the Pit
Rim of the Pit
Rim of the Pit is a locked-room mystery novel written by Hake Talbot, a pen name of Henning Nelms. Nelms published one other mystery novel as well as two short stories. After 1945, when it became very difficult to publish mystery fiction, Nelms could not get his third novel published. He then...
include:
- "A dead man's VOICE floating on the wind across a lonely, frozen lake ... An encased ACCORDION playing a dead man's favorite song ... A SEANCE in an isolated lodge at which a medium is forced by her second husband to summon the spirit of her first husband ... A terrifying THING which seems to take possession of a man ... FOOTPRINTS which seem to begin nowhere; end nowhere ... A weird, flying, manlike CREATURE ... A SILVER BULLET molded by a half-crazed man ... Horrible MURDER, apparently unsolvable, of a supernatural origin."
And the enticing section, "Wouldn't you like to Know --"
- What made a Great Dane suddenly leap to his feet during the seance, growl and quiver in fear?
- Why the appearance of the hideous apparition caused such obvious terror in the medium?
- How a man escaped from a strongly barricaded room?
- What a windigo is?
- The significance of the words "net" and "emit" on the inside of an envelope?
- Why all the mirrors in the dead woman's room were smashed?
Of course, non-mysteries had somewhat less tantalizing clues and questions, but the same format was kept. The "List of Exciting Chapters" featured chapter titles which were frequently added or changed by Dell editors.
Types of mapbacks
Mapbacks were primarily mysteries, but many different sorts of books found their way into this inclusive line. A few oddities were published without a map on the back cover. Dell "War Books" such as #26, The Raft and #32, This Time For Keeps, had back covers which exhorted the reader to "Buy War Bonds and Stamps", as did books of jokes and cartoons such as #38, Liberty Laughs and #77, G.I. Jokes. The rarest mapback of all is #278, Second Dell Book of Crossword Puzzles edited by Kathleen Rafferty, also map-less.Two other genres which had a number of entries in the mapback line were romances and Westerns. Romances were not frequent, and were by "name" authors such as Faith Baldwin
Faith Baldwin
Faith Baldwin was a very successful U.S. author of romance and fiction, publishing some 100 novels, often concentrating on women juggling career and family...
(#116, Honor Bound) and Mary Renault
Mary Renault
Mary Renault born Eileen Mary Challans, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece...
(#189, Kind Are Her Answers), only occasionally descending to the level of the "nurse romance". The quality of Westerns was also generally high, including authors such as William MacLeod Raine
William MacLeod Raine
William MacLeod Raine , was a British-born American novelist who wrote fictional adventure stories about the American Old West.-Life:William MacLeod Raine was born in London, the son of William and Jessie Raine...
(#179, Trail's End) and Bliss Lomax (Harry Sinclair Drago) (#271, Gunsmoke and Trail Dust).
There are a number of movie tie-in novels in the series. One of the most significant is #262, Rope as by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
-- actually written by Don Ward -- with a cover featuring James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
. The second mapback edition of Gerald Butler's Kiss The Blood Off My Hands is published as The Unafraid, with a cover photograph of Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
and Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
. Other novels in the series are those upon which well-known films were based, although without movie tie-in covers -- these include Tugboat Annie, The Sheik, Now, Voyager, The Harvey Girls and Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat.
But by far the largest number of mapbacks is made up of mysteries. The mapback series contains some significant first editions ("first as such") by famous authors such as Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
, and interesting editions of such authors as Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
(Too Many Cooks #45; The Red Bull
Some Buried Caesar
Some Buried Caesar is the sixth Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine , under the title "The Red Bull." It was first published in book form by Farrar & Rinehart in 1939...
#70), Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
, Cornell Woolrich
Cornell Woolrich
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley....
, Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, best known for the Perry Mason series, he also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...
writing as A. A. Fair, John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
and his alter ego Carter Dickson, and Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
. There are editions of other mysteries which have stood the test of time and are still considered moderately significant today, such as the works of Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Phoebe Atwood Taylor was an American mystery author.Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery novels under her own name, and as Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. Her first novel, The Cape Cod Mystery, introduced the "Codfish Sherlock", Asey Mayo, who became a series character appearing in 24 novels...
(under her own name and as Alice Tilton), Patricia Wentworth
Patricia Wentworth
Patricia Wentworth was a British crime fiction writer.She was born in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India . She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey...
, Stuart Palmer
Stuart Palmer
Stuart Palmer was a popular mystery novel author and screenwriter, best known for his character Hildegarde Withers.Palmer was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin...
, Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies...
, Earl Derr Biggers
Earl Derr Biggers
Earl Derr Biggers was an American novelist and playwright. He is remembered primarily for adaptations of his novels, especially those featuring the Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan.-Biography:...
, Patricia McGerr
Patricia McGerr
Patricia McGerr was an American crime writer, primarily known for her puzzle mystery novels. She won an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine/MWA prize for her 1968 story Match Point in Berlin and was awarded the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in 1952 for her 1951 novel Follow, As the Night. Her...
, Baynard Kendrick
Baynard Kendrick
Baynard Hardwick Kendrick wrote whodunit mystery novels about Duncan Maclain, a blind private investigator who worked with his two German shepherds and his household of assistants to solve murder mysteries. The novels were the basis for two films starring Edward Arnold, Eyes in the Night and The...
, Margaret Millar
Margaret Millar
Margaret Ellis Millar was an American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer.Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she was educated there and in Toronto. She moved to the United States after marrying Kenneth Millar...
, Mary Roberts Rinehart
Mary Roberts Rinehart
Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing...
, C. W. Grafton
C. W. Grafton
Cornelius Warren Grafton was an American crime novelist. He was born and raised in China, where his parents were working as missionaries...
(father of Sue Grafton
Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton is a contemporary American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W...
) and many others.
The Dell mapback line also contains a number of mysteries by writers who have fallen out of favor over the years -- or who were never popular. Collectors cherish the camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
value of such mysteries as Murder Wears Mukluks by Eunice Mays Boyd, The Body That Wasn't Uncle by George Worthing Yates, and Death Wears a White Gardenia by Zelda Popkin.
The mapback line is also notable for what it does not contain -- mapbacks never partook of two popular trends in the 1950s that flourished at other paperback houses, namely the "lesbian confession" novel and the "juvenile delinquent" or "juvie" novel.