Classic Crossword Puzzle Reference: STARR'S SYNONYMS
Starr, Marion M[arjorie]. MARION STARR'S SYNONYMS. A "Right" Name Finder for Objects or Arrangements Thereof, Identifiable by Sight, Picture or Diagram. Kensington, Maryland: Marion M. Starr, publisher, [1955]. vii, 188 pages. Original printed pale green wraps. 22.5 x 15 cm. Very good plus with some mild soiling or toning to the wraps and a little sun-fading to the spine.
FIRST EDITION. A thesaurus of concrete nouns compiled for use in crossword puzzle competitions. Starr was herself an active participant in national puzzle tournaments, and her preface boasts of the lucrative prizes she and others won at these events.
She writes, "The growth in number and quality of word games and puzzles and their participants has added further to `right' name importance. Most dramatic among these are national word contests with multiplied thousands of participants, with prestige and substantial monetary rewards for the winners. Typically these culminate with tie breakers under which the winners are determined by their ability to find the `right' name of an object whose identification may be relatively simple, but the `right' name is given only by the contestant who has access to, and can select it from, the full roster of potential right names. For example, a $50,000 first prize went to a contester who identified a giraffe as a `camaille,' an obsolete variant of 'camel' . . . In the course of her word study in preparing this book, the author received, as dividends, so to speak, well over $50,000 in prize money from national word contests in which she used in her solutions synonyms and variant spellings contained in this book." -p. vii.
While little-known today, Starr's “Synonyms” was highly praised by William Sunners, a famous authority on puzzles, puzzle making, and puzzle competitions, and the author of "How to Win Prize Contests" (first of many editions, 1949). After pointing out the shortcomings of earlier crossword puzzle references, Sunners writes "It was not until 1955, when 'Marion Starr's Synonyms' . . . appeared, that a really useful book became available" -- "A Horse of Another Color," in "Word Ways," (vol. 11, iss. 4, 1978). Sunners recognized that Starr's "Synonyms" had "one basic defect: It contained synonyms for only tangible (illustratrable) nouns.” However, he notes that her work was not surpassed until 1974, “with the publication of Tom Pulliam's and Clare Grundman's incomparable 'The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Dictionary' . . . " (p. 242).
Starr's “Synonyms” was self-published and likely not widely distributed, and it is quite scarce today. Both OCLC and NUC locate only the same two copies (Library of Congress and Cornell), and neither identifies any other editions. At the time of cataloging (May, 2026), we found no other copies for sale or records of prior sales in Worthpoint.
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