Mapback

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.

"[2] "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.

For instance, the protagonist of the mapback shown at right is described as follows: The "tantalizer-pages" contained two features meant to entice the browsing reader.

One of the most significant is Dell #262, Rope as by Alfred Hitchcock -- actually written by Don Ward -- with a cover art featuring James Stewart.

[4] 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.

There are editions of other mysteries which have stood the test of time and are still considered significant today, such as the works of Phoebe Atwood Taylor (under her own name and as Alice Tilton), Brett Halliday (pen name of Davis Dresser), Louis Joseph Vance, Patricia Wentworth, Stuart Palmer, Clayton Rawson, Earl Derr Biggers, Patricia McGerr, Baynard Kendrick, Margaret Millar, Mary Roberts Rinehart, C. W. Grafton (father of Sue Grafton) 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.