Clair Blank

Clarissa Mabel Blank (August 5, 1915 – August 15, 1965) was an American novelist. She wrote the 26-volume Beverly Gray mystery series from 1934 to 1955, the three-volume The Adventure Girls series in 1936, and the adult-oriented novel Lover Come Back in 1940.

Blank was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, then moved to Philadelphia, where she graduated from Olney High School with honors. She began writing the Beverly Gray books while still in high school; they were accepted by the publisher A. L. Burt and published around May 1934, when Blank was 18. She wrote two more books in the series the following year, and then one each year thereafter, until the series was cancelled in 1955. The three volumes in The Adventure Girls were published in 1936, but never continued; although both series were sold in 1937, Beverly Gray ended up at Grosset & Dunlap, which could continue the series, while The Adventure Girls went to Saalfield Publishing, which only reprinted existing titles.

Outside of her writing career, Blank worked as a typist and secretary for the Keystone Pipeline Company before quitting in 1946 to focus on her family and writing. She died of cancer in 1965, at the age of 50.

Background 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.