The Mystery of Ruth Belew: The Dell Mapbacks
The Mystery of Ruth Belew The Dell Mapbacks As a kid in the 1940’s I was fascinated by the piles of paperback mysteries that sat around my grandmother’s cottage. I poured over them in the flickering yellow light of the “coal-oil” (kerosene) lamp while playing Hot Pretzels or The Pennsylvania Polka on the crank-up Victorola. I studied them carefully, but I wasn’t reading the stories. Instead I was fascinated with the covers. Specifically the back covers. The mysteries were 25¢ Dell paperbacks, those we know today as “mapbacks.” Over the years I have accumulated two dozen or so of these graphic design classics. They were produced from 1943 to 1953. They had a style all their own. Dell Books was a venture of George Delacourte, a New York publisher, and Lloyd Smith of Western Printing and Lithography in Racine, Wisconsin. (Much of this information comes fro...