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Whitman Authorized Editions
The Whitman Authorized Editions (1941-1947) were published by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Each of the books featured a popular film actress' name in the title and her image on the dust jacket. While the Whitman Authorized Editions are not a book series named as such, each book features a fictional analogue of a '40s era teenage star as the protagonist of a mystery story. Stars featured in the series included Deanna Durbin, Bonita Granville, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, and Ann Sheridan. Critics have remarked on the similarity in tone and story structure between the Whitman Authorized Editions and the Nancy Drew series. Whitman continued to publish books based upon licensed properties - film and TV productions, for the most part - into the 1970s. These books were also marked as "Authorized Edition" but were not part of this series. World War II Many of the protagonists model ways for girls and young women to help the war effort on the home fr ...
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Whitman Publishing Company
Whitman Publishing is an American book publishing company which started as a subsidiary of the Western Printing & Lithographing Company of Racine, Wisconsin. In about 1915, Western began printing and binding a line of juvenile books for the Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company of Chicago. A few years later Hamming-Whitman went bankrupt, and Western took over the company, found success in selling the inventory of low-cost juvenile books, and formed the Whitman Publishing Company.Brown, David & Virginia, ''Whitman Juvenile Books Reference & Value Guide'', page 5, Collector Books, 1997 Whitman now primarily produces coin and stamp collecting books and materials. The company was owned by Anderson Press until October 2023 when it was sold to CDN Publishing, LLC, home of thGreysheet The combined companies now operate under the global brand name oWhitman Brands Children's book publisher From the early 1900s to the mid-1980s, Whitman was a popular children's book publisher. For decades ...
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Racine, Wisconsin
Racine ( ) is a city in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River (Wisconsin), Root River, south of Milwaukee and north of Chicago. It is the List of cities in Wisconsin, fifth-most populous city in Wisconsin, with a population of 77,816 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Racine metropolitan statistical area (consisting only of Racine County) with 197,727 residents. The Racine area is part of the greater Milwaukee metropolitan area#Combined statistical area, Milwaukee combined statistical area. Racine is the headquarters of several industrial companies, namely Case IH, Dremel, InSinkErator, Modine Manufacturing, Reliance Controls, and S. C. Johnson & Son. Historically, the Mitchell & Lewis Company began making motorcycles and automobiles in Racine at the start of the 20th century. Racine was also home to the Horlicks malt factory, where ma ...
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Deanna Durbin
Edna May Durbin (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013), known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born American soprano and actress, who moved to the U.S. from Canada with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. Additionally, she performed mostly classical concerts and recitals as well as concerts with semi-classical and popular music. With the technique of a legitimate lyric soprano, she specialized in opera arias, art song, and semi-classical songs, which is today known as classical crossover. Durbin was a child actress who made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in ''Every Sunday'' (1936), and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Pictures, Universal Studios. She achieved success as the ideal teenaged daughter in films such as ''Three Smart Girls'' (1936) and ''One Hundred Men and a Girl'' (1937). Her work was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy, and led to Durbin being awarded the Academy Juvenile A ...
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Bonita Granville
Bonita Gloria Granville Wrather (February 2, 1923 – October 11, 1988) was an American actress and producer. The daughter of vaudevillians, Granville began her career on the stage at age three. She initially began as a child actress, making her film debut in ''Westward Passage'' (1932). She rose to prominence for her role in '' These Three'' (1936), which earned her an Academy Award nomination at age fourteen. Her prominence continued with the ''Nancy Drew'' film series, and roles in ''Now, Voyager'' (1942) and ''Hitler's Children (1943 film), Hitler's Children'' (1943). After marrying Jack Wrather in 1947, Granville transitioned into producing with her husband on series such as ''Lassie (1954 TV series), Lassie'' (1959–1973). She also worked as a Philanthropy, philanthropist and a businesswoman, most notably owning and operating the Disneyland Hotel (California), Disneyland Hotel and the in Long Beach, California, Long Beach, with her husband. She was appointed to the Joh ...
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Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Possessing a strong contralto voice, she was celebrated for her emotional depth and versatility across film, stage, and concert performance. Garland achieved international recognition for her portrayal of Dorothy Gale in ''The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). Her recording of "Over the Rainbow" became an enduring song in American popular music. Over a career spanning more than forty-five years, she recorded Judy Garland discography#Studio albums, eleven studio albums, and several of her recordings were later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. At the age of two, Garland began her career by performing with her two sisters as a vaudeville act, The Gumm Sisters. In 1935, she signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at thirteen and appeared in supporting roles in ensemble musicals such as Broadway Melody of 1938, ''Broadway Melody of 1938'' (1937) and Thoroughbreds Don't Cry, ''Thorough ...
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Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Kitty Foyle (film), ''Kitty Foyle'' (1940), and performed during the 1930s in RKO's musical films with Fred Astaire. Her career continued on stage, radio and television throughout much of the 20th century. Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City. She and her family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when she was nine years old. In 1925, she won a Charleston dance contest that helped her launch a successful vaudeville career. After that, she gained recognition as a Broadway theatre, Broadway actress for her stage debut in ''Girl Crazy''. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film roles as a supporting actress in '' ...
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Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million, and for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she placed among the Quigley Poll's top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, although all were surpassed by Mary Pickford, with 13 years). The U.S. Treasury Department listed her as the highest-salaried American woman in 1946 and 1947, and she earned more than $3 million during her career. Grable began her film career in 1929 at age 12 and was later fired from a contract for having signed with a false identification. She studied acting with Neely Dickson at the Hollywood Community Theater. She had contracts with RKO and Paramount Pictures during the 1930s and appeared in a string of B movies, mostly portraying college students. She came to prominence in the Broadway musical '' Du Barry Wa ...
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Ann Sheridan
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films ''San Quentin'' (1937), '' Angels with Dirty Faces'' (1938), '' They Drive by Night'' (1940), '' City for Conquest'' (1940), '' The Man Who Came to Dinner'' (1942), ''Kings Row'' (1942), '' Nora Prentiss'' (1947), and '' I Was a Male War Bride'' (1949). Early life Clara Lou Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, on February 21, 1915, the youngest of five children (Kitty, Pauline, Mabel, and George) of garage mechanic George W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart (née Warren). According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan. She was active in dramatics at Denton High School and at North Texas State Teachers College. She also sang with the college's stage band and played basketball on the North Texas women's basketball team. Then, in 1933, Sheridan won the prize of a bit part in an upcoming Param ...
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Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the ''Nancy Drew Mystery Stories'' series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels. Over the decades, the character has evolved in response to changes in American culture and tastes. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised and shortened, partly to lower the printing costs,Rehak (2006), 243. with arguable success.Rehak (2006), 248. In the revision process, the heroine's original character was changed to be less unruly and violent.Lapin (1989). In the 1980s, an older and more professional Nancy emerged in a new series, ''The Nancy Drew Files'', that included roman ...
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Book Series
A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publisher. Publishers' reprint series Reprint series of public domain fiction (and sometimes nonfiction) books appeared as early as the 18th century, with the series ''The Poets of Great Britain Complete from Chaucer to Churchill'' (founded by British publisher John Bell (publisher), John Bell in 1777). In 1841 the German Tauchnitz publishers, Tauchnitz publishing firm launched the ''Collection of British and American Authors'', a reprint series of inexpensive paperbound editions of both public domain and copyrighted fiction and nonfiction works. This book series was unique for paying living authors of the works published even though copyright protection did not exist between nations in the 19th century. Later British reprint series were to ...
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