Clarissa Mabel Blank (August 5, 1915 – August 15, 1965) was an American writer. She wrote a series of 26 books called the Beverly Gray mystery series, which she wrote from 1934 to 1955. She also wrote a 3-volume series called The Adventure Girls in 1936 and an adult novel titled Lover Come Back in 1940.
Blank was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Philadelphia, where she graduated from Olney High School with honors. She began writing the Beverly Gray books while still in high school. Her first books were accepted by the publisher A. L. Burt and published around May 1934, when she was 18 years old. She wrote two more books in the series the following year and then one book each year after that until the series ended in 1955. The three books in The Adventure Girls series were published in 1936, but the series was not continued. Both series were sold in 1937, but Beverly Gray was moved to Grosset & Dunlap, a publisher that could continue the series, while The Adventure Girls was sold to Saalfield Publishing, which only reprinted the existing books.
In addition to writing, Blank worked as a typist and secretary for the Keystone Pipeline Company. She left this job in 1946 to focus on her family and writing. She died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 50.
Early life and education
Clarissa Mabel Blank was born on August 5, 1915, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Bessie and Edgar H. Blank. Her father worked as a loom fixer at a local silk mill and later at a clothing plant in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.
Blank attended Herbst Elementary School on 5th and Chew streets in Allentown until she was around ten years old. Her family then moved to the Olney section of Philadelphia. Though her parents had only nine years of schooling, Blank graduated from Olney High School with honors during the mid-winter ceremony in February 1933. By age 18, she had published the first four books in her Beverly Gray series. She then enrolled at Peirce School of Business Administration (now Peirce College) in Philadelphia.
Career
Blank wrote 30 novels, including the 26-volume Beverly Gray series from 1934 to 1955, the 3-volume Adventure Girls series in 1936, and the adult novel Lover Come Back in 1949. At least two of her manuscripts were never published. In December 1941, Blank sent an unsolicited manuscript, Linda Ross at Hamilton, to Grosset & Dunlap. The publisher’s editor rejected it four months later, stating that “there seems to be a strong prejudice against starting a new mystery series with a school background.” Blank also wrote a novel to follow Beverly Gray’s Surprise, the last book in the series. This work was never printed because the series was canceled in 1955. Additionally, a fourth Adventure Girls book, The Adventure Girls on Vacation, was advertised at the end of the third book but was never published. It is unclear if Blank began writing it.
Blank started writing the Beverly Gray books while in high school. By late 1933, she had sent a manuscript for the first volume to the publisher A. L. Burt. By March 1934, she had completed the first four volumes, which were released as a “breeder set” around May 1934. Local newspapers at the time described Blank as “A story-writer at 19 with a record of never having had a manuscript rejected.”
Blank wrote two additional Beverly Gray books in 1935, a seventh volume in 1936, and an eighth in 1937. She received a flat fee of $175 for each of the eight books. In 1937, A. L. Burt was sold to Blue Ribbon Books. At the time, the Beverly Gray series was the best-selling girls’ series sold by A. L. Burt. Blue Ribbon continued publishing the eight existing novels, but the sale caused a nearly year-long delay in deciding whether to continue the series. Eventually, the series was sold in 1938 to Grosset & Dunlap, which published Beverly Gray on a Treasure Hunt that year. Blank began earning royalties for the first time: two cents per book (later increased to three cents), in addition to $200 per manuscript.
When Grosset & Dunlap took over the series, they removed the original sixth novel, Beverly Gray at the World’s Fair, which was set at the Century of Progress in Chicago from 1933 to 1934, due to concerns that it would make the series seem outdated. They renumbered the seventh and eighth books to make them the sixth and seventh, and published Beverly Gray on a Treasure Hunt as the eighth. Blank continued writing one Beverly Gray book per year until Grosset & Dunlap canceled the series in 1955. After that, the later books were republished by Clover Books, a reprint line acquired by Grosset & Dunlap in 1954, for several years.
The Adventure Girls series was published as a breeder set by A. L. Burt in 1936 and never continued. All three books were copyrighted on April 27, 1936, the same day as Beverly Gray on a World Cruise. Although a fourth book was advertised at the end of the third, it was never published. Unlike the Beverly Gray series, which was purchased by a publisher that could issue new titles, the Adventure Girls series was bought by Saalfield Publishing in 1937, which only reprinted existing titles. New printings were not issued until the fall of 1942. None of the books had their copyright renewed and are now in the public domain.
*This title was dropped from the series in 1938.
*Errantly referred to as “K-Bar-O” on the dust jacket.
Advertised by name at the end of the third book but never published.
Blank’s only adult novel, Lover Come Back, was published in 1940 by Gramercy, now a division of Random House. Notifications in The Pittsburgh Press stated that it was printed in the paper’s complete novel section on April 13, 1941. Because of this limited print run, Lover Come Back is Blank’s scarcest published novel.
Lover Come Back shares similarities with 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 in Lover Come Back has the same professions and success, and reports for The Times, presumably The New York Times. As one reviewer noted, Beverly Gray leads “such a life of adventure as would tax the resources of any soap opera heroine,” while another described Lover Come Back as “a soap opera” with “a series of mini-climaxes strung together.” The book’s “major ingredients” include:
Blank worked as a typist in Philadelphia for the Keystone Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of the Atlantic Refining Company. In 1940, she became a secretary there and, still living with her parents, earned about $1,500 a year. During World War II, she joined the American Women’s Voluntary Services, where she drove U.S. Army officers when they came to town. Blank left Keystone in 1946 to focus on raising her sons and writing.
Personal life
Blank was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and taught Sunday school for many years. She had a group of four longtime friends, similar to the group in the Beverly Gray books, and met with them regularly. She enjoyed traveling to New York on weekends with her friends and later spent summers with family in Wildwood, New Jersey. Although she did not travel worldwide like Beverly Gray, she enjoyed traveling, including several trips to California. One trip was to the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939, and another was in 1960 with her family.
In 1941, George Elmer Moyer, who grew up with Clair in Allentown, moved to Philadelphia. The two married in 1943. Moyer reached the rank of sergeant while serving in the U.S. Army from February 1944 to February 1946 at the end of World War II. After his military service, he worked as a skilled welder at the Budd Company, where he made cars, tanks, Chevrolet fenders, and plastics until his retirement. He also took night classes in mechanical engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The couple had two sons, Robert G. and John C. Moyer, born in 1947 and 1953, respectively.
Blank underwent surgery for cancer around 1960. The cancer returned later, and she died on August 15, 1965, in Philadelphia. Her husband died on February 27, 1998.