a New Brunswick Historic Site in 1999. Children's book author Prompted by fan mail requesting that the Just Mary stories be made available in book form, the CBC collaborated with the Canadian textbook publisher W.J. Gage & Company to produce Mary Grannan's first book. Entitled Just Mary and containing twelve stories, it was published in an edition of 4500 copies in January 1941. The CBC purchased 500 copies at cost for direct sale to the public, with the rest going to bookstores. A second book, Just Mary Again, appeared in late fall 1941, also published by CBC and Gage. Both books sold out quickly and were followed a third, Just Mary Stories: Combining Just Mary and Just Mary Again, which appeared in an edition of 10,000 in 1942. As a salaried CBC employee, Mary Grannan did not receive royalties from the sale of her first three books as the CBC considered that it owned the copyright of the scripts. G.P. Putnam's Sons published a US edition of Just Mary Stories in the fall of 1944. Also in 1944 the Canadian publisher Thomas Allen & Son Limited brought out Maggie Muggins, a collection of stories that had not appeared on the radio program. Both of these publications paid royalties. Between 1943 and 1945, the copyright status of the previously broadcast Just Mary stories was under discussion by lawyers for the CBC, Thomas Allen, and Mary Grannan herself. The outcome was that Mary Grannan retained copyright in her work and received royalties from her subsequent books, which were all published by Thomas Allen in Canada. These included more than 15 titles in the Maggie Muggins series and several collections of Just Mary stories. Mary Grannan's books were Canadian best-sellers during the 1940s and 1950s. The Just Mary titles alone had sold 120,000 copies by 1947, and by 1962 her total sales were approximately 400,000. Grannan was named a National Historic Person in 2018. References External links 1968 Radio interview with Mary Grannan at CBC Digital Archives Mary Grannan at the New Brunswick Public Library Service's New Brunswick Author Portal Canadian children's writers 1900 births 1975 deaths Canadian radio personalities Writers from Fredericton Canadian women children's writers 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian writers Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)