"Mapbacks" and More: the back cover cartographies of the Dell paperbacks
From 1942 to 1960, the Dell Publishing Company produced 1,020 paperback books. They were priced at 25 cents each and were primarily reprints of popular fiction titles, covering a wide range of genres: mystery, romance, western, adventure, and science fiction. The covers featured original artwork by a host of commercial illustrators, and 577 of them also featured maps or diagrams on the back covers. These books came to be known as “mapbacks,” and are highly prized by collectors today. Although un-credited on the books themselves, researchers have linked the illustrator Ruth Belew to hundreds of the "mapback" maps. In 2021, the Bancroft Library acquired a complete collection of the Dell paperbacks.
Bancroft Library staff members Geanna Hernandez-Phan and Randy Brandt will be bringing over a choice selection of the Library's mapbacks for visitors to explore. Please join us in taking a dive into the world of mapbacks, complemented with maps from the Earth Sciences & Map Library collection.
For the past several years, the Bancroft Library has been expanding its collections of vintage paperback books. The library has acquired significant collections of Lesbian pulp fiction and paperbacks written by Black authors and on themes of race, including a large collection of books published by Holloway House in Los Angeles, which specialized in Black pulp fiction in the 1960s and 70s. Bancroft also has a nearly complete collection of Armed Services Editions, those funny little oblong paperbacks produced during World War 2 for distribution to GIs in Europe and the Pacific. In 2021, Bancroft’s paperback collections took a significant leap forward with the acquisition of complete collections of Dell, Popular Library, and Pocket Book paperbacks.
Modern paperback publishing in America began in 1938, when Pocket Books began producing inexpensive reprints of popular literature. Penguin Books came along the next year, followed in 1942 by Avon and Popular Library. The Dell Publishing Company, based in New York City, also got into the game in 1942 when they entered into a partnership with Western Printing & Lithographing Company in Racine, Wisconsin. The books were the idea of Dell’s founder, George T. Delacorte, Jr. Up to that time, Dell had been primarily publishing magazines and comics.
The relationship between Dell and Western began largely because Dell needed a large stock of paper, which Western had in 1942–paper was in short supply during World War II–and because Western needed printing work, which Dell could provide in the form of its new paperback line. The books were priced at 25 cents each and were mostly reprints of popular genre fiction–mysteries, westerns, and romance. Dell published only a couple of science fiction books during its heyday, mainly because the editor at Western disliked the genre. The first book, Death in the Library by Philip Ketchum, was published in March 1943. The last book in the 25 cent series was a western called Rope the Wind by Norman A. Fox and was published in May 1960.
From the very beginning, Dell commissioned original artwork for the front covers from a series of freelance commercial artists. At first, the books had vivid, vibrant airbrushed covers. Later, the cover art became dominated by action scenes. But, the unique feature of the early Dell paperbacks is the back-cover map or diagram. As William Lyles noted in his history of Dell Publishing, Putting Dell on the Map: “These four-color cartographic fantasies have caused collectors to refer to them affectionately as ‘mapbacks’” (Lyles, 1983a, p. 83)
The first mapback was Dell #5, a mystery titled Four Frightened Women by George Harmon Coxe, and features a map of “Cliffwood,” a country house and estate near Boston. The maps were an immediate success with readers, especially with mystery readers as the maps served as crime scene maps and diagrams.
There are four main types of maps on the mapbacks:
The two most popular cities represented in Dell maps are New York and San Francisco. Other cities with multiple maps include Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Pittsburgh, New Orleans.
Not all of the back cover designs are true maps. Some show unexplored regions – or at least at the time the maps were made they were unexplored – such as the Moon or the planet Mars. One book features a map of Hell, the accuracy of which is so far unverified.
There are two figures that are not well-known in relation to Dell mapbacks, but who were prominent figures in the collection’s process: Vice President of Dell, Helen Meyer, and the artist behind the mapbacks, Ruth Belew.
Helen Meyer began working as a secretary at Dell in 1924 at the age of 16, at a time when Dell had just eight employees. She gradually rose within the company, becoming the Vice President during the duration of the mapback series and eventually becoming the President of Dell sometime in the 1950’s through 1976, when Dell was sold to Doubleday & Company (Lyles, 1983a, p. 4; Wikipedia, 2024a).
Meyer was often referred to as the “Doyenne of Dell” because, in many scenarios, her opinion was the last word influencing an approval (Lyles, 1983a, p. 4). She was known as one of the toughest and shrewdest executives in New York at a time when women did not hold high-ranking positions in most fields. In many ways, it was because of the “Doyenne of Dell" that the paperback line was established. Meyer was the one who pushed for an expansion of paperbacks with Dell Publishing during a time when Dell was mostly producing pulp magazines. It was through her suggestion, that bringing paperbacks into the business came to fruition and she was instrumental in the decision to include maps – a particular feature of Dell books that became such a popular identifying element. She later expanded Dell into hardcover books with her ongoing relationship with Delacorte Press, headed the Dell Comics imprint with Delacorte, and spearheaded the licensing to include comics with Disney characters (Wikipedia, 2024a).
Meyer advocated to retain the maps on Dell paperbacks. However, with a redesign campaign in 1951 by the executive editor, Frank Taylor, the usage of maps declined to the point where they appeared only occasionally and in a more decorative capacity. Freelance artists were employed to develop the maps (Lyles, 1983a, p. 118).
The second individual, Ruth Belew, drew most of the Dell mapbacks between 1942 and 1951. She was a Chicago-based artist who is credited to have drawn at least 150 maps, but in actuality she probably completed many more (Lyles, 1983a, p. 84). Because records of Dell during this era are spotty, verifying her contribution is difficult and so only about 150 mapback illustrations are confirmed (Wikipedia, 2024b).
Belew was said to work on 4-6 different maps simultaneously. The artwork was originally completed twice its size in black ink on white cardboard with banners and lettering, most of which were also done by Belew. The overall designs were thoughtfully crafted so as not to give too much of the plot away with their wording and phrasing–something especially important to mystery readers (Lyles, 1983a, p. 85). The detail within the mapbacks is definitely something to note. Some mapbacks contain a significant amount of detail–whether it is by providing streets and landmarks in larger geographical areas of city maps or through the inclusion of items and their placements within rooms and/or building layouts. All of these elements were provided as clues for the reader to reference in their reading journeys. Belew was known to give a significant amount of detail and apply her artistic license to Chicago locations, since that was her place of residence (Lyles, 1983a, pp. 94-117). Mapbacks depicting Chicago, Illinois include #141, #304, #380, #392, #521, and #577 (Lyles, 1983b, p. 458).
From Belew, the artwork would then be sent to Western Printing to compare the map's accuracy, be given the final approval, and add color to the artwork (Lyles, 1983a, pp. 84-85).
In addition to the maps produced for the Dell books, Western Printing & Lithographing Company also prepared many maps used by the Armed Forces during World War II–maps used for bombing runs over Germany, for example. They also produced road and city maps for Esso Oil Company, which were used to check the accuracy of the maps drawn for the Dell books (Lyles, 1983a, p. 85).
So, when viewing the mapbacks, take notice of the many details included within the different map styles, and try noticing the difference between the earlier designs which had only a few colors, and the later mapbacks which had a wider color variety.
Of the 1,020 paperbacks published by Dell between 1943 and 1960, 577 of them are mapbacks. The Bancroft Library has copies of all of them, and they are now available to researchers.
Lyles, W. H. (1983a). Putting Dell on the map: A history of the Dell paperbacks. Greenwood Press.
Lyles, W. H. (1983b). Dell paperbacks, 1942-mid-1962: A catalog-index. Greenwood Press.
Wikipedia. (2024a, November 14). Helen Honig Meyer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Honig_Meyer
Wikipedia. (2024b, March 16). Ruth O'Neal Belew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_O%27Neal_Belew