About the Biff Brewster Series - Book Formats
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About the Biff Brewster Series

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American Biff Brewster Dust Jacke Edition
American Dust Jacket Editions: The first ten books of the series were published in a sort of grey lattice patterned hard cover with black printing, featuring the Biff Brewster compass symbol on the front cover. The dust jackets are full color with the front illustration wrapping around to the spine, and the back panel advertising the other books in the series. The front flap has a summary of the current story, and the back flap often advertises another series. There are usually half a dozen illustrations throughout the book, some of which stretch over two facing pages, with room for text above or below. Unfortunately the artists are not credited, but some of the covers are among Grosset & Dunlap's best art. The endpapers for the first four books are heavier stock with green printing depicting a scene from Mystery of the Chinese Ring, but with one character's Chinese hat missing to make it look Biff Brewster Endpaper less specific. The endpapers for African Ivory Mystery use the same illustration, but rather poorly redone as a line drawing to save on ink, and it appears in black. The final eight volumes in the series feature new artwork that uses a large compass spanning the middle surrounded by eight small illustrations. Several of the illustrations are small versions of those found in volumes #1, #2, #3, and #5, while the others seem only loosely related to volumes #6, #7, and #11, and were likely prepared before those manuscripts were finished. The books themselves have a green topstain on the page edges, and are Grosset & Dunlap's standard size of approximately 5" x 7½" with a three-quarters of an inch thickness. The original retail price for the early books was $1.00, but later rose to $1.25, and finally to $1.50.

American Biff Brewster Picture Cover Editions
American Picture Cover Editions: Like Grosset & Dunlap's other series of the time, Biff Brewster changed to the slightly less expensive picture cover bindings partway through the series. Strangely, this appears to have take place in 1964 (about two years after most of the others had converted), and only volumes #1, #2, #3, #11, #12, and #13 were released in this format. The picture cover editions have a distinctive purple spine with the familiar compass logo near the bottom, and a green topstain on the pages. The rear board is the same color of purple with an illustration of Biff in India, and a listing of the first ten books in the series (no matter what printing). These editions are a uniform size with the earlier versions, measuring approximately 5" x 7½" and a thickness of about three-quarters of an inch.

American Biff Brewster Picture Cover Editions
British Editions: Bancroft & Co. of London released Mystery of the Arabian Stallion as part of their Pied Piper Library, at an original retail price of six shillings. It was sold in England and Australia, and most likely New Zealand and South Africa as well. This edition consists of an unadorned green hardcover book with a full-color dust jacket. The jacket flaps have summaries of this and another unrelated book in the series, but the rear is just a solid shade of maroon taken from around the title on front. The book measures approximately 5½" x 8½" with a thickness of about an inch, and was printed in Germany. Besides the front cover, there are five internal illustrations unique to this volume.

Dutch Editions: Brazilian Gold Mine Mystery and Mystery of the Chinese Ring were both translated into Dutch by Hans van Haaren, and published by De Verkenner as part of a series of books for the Nederlandse Padvinders, a boy scout type organization. These paperback editions measure nearly 4½" x 7" and just under ½" thick, and include unique cover art and frontispiece by Rein van Looy. There are lists of other books to buy in the last few pages as well as one right in the middle of the book, and the back cover contains a summary of the story.

Norwegian Editions: Forlagshuset of Oslo republished the first eight of the American titles, as well as British Spy Ring Mystery in hardbacked picture cover editions. Several of the early volumes were translated into Norwegian by Fr. Knutsen, and the rest were done by various others. There are no illustrations aside from the cover art on each which is a slightly less detailed version of the American cover, except for Mystery of the Ambush in India which copies the frontispiece from the American edition. The artwork is not credited anywhere, but the style seems consistent with one artist. The books themselves measure approximately 5" x 7¼", and are about three-quarters of an inch thick. The back cover features a list of titles from any of several Forlagshuset juvenile series, and the spine is a light blue vinyl-like material with lettering and decoration stamped in gold.

Swedish Editions: The first five books of the series were translated and available in picture cover editions from B. Wahlströms. Oddly enough, they were issued somewhat out of order, and the main character was renamed Bill Bruce. Early printings measure about 5" x 7" versus the later 4½" x 7", and both versions are about ½" thick. The spine is green cloth with black lettering, and the back cover and last few pages of the books list other books for sale from the publisher. Retail price ranged from 4.40 kroner to 4.75 kroner. There are no internal illustrations, but the cover art is unique to these editions and was done by Rickard Lüsch.




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