Short blog this week as it was our Grandsons 6th birthday which meant a trip to Kent to join in the celebrations. This was followed by the opening of the last section of the disused railway track to Lichfield we’ve worked on for the last 18 months. This appeared on the BBC News but the reel made by Lichfield District Council was much better. Click HERE to see it. Annoyingly they say it is Lichfield to Chasewater when it should Walsall as it is a continuation of the track we have been cleared over the last eight years. We then decided to go away in our camper making a site booking just before they announced Storm Benjamin was on the way and to batten down the hatches. We decided we would go and sit it out but in fact ended up sitting out under a blue sky in the sun. Certainly no sign of a storm here in the Midlands. Then the family came up from Kent as it was half term ……..

If you are anywhere near Wolverhampton the popup bookshop has made a welcome return until the 16th November In the Community Hub shop in the Mander Centre. I shall go along this week and hope it is well supported as it is a great initiative and takes a lot of setting up as can be seen here.

I was pleased to be asked to contribute a couple of cover scans to the Hugh Walpole Society Journal to go with an article in the latest edition. They were for ‘Mr Perrin and Mr Trail’ being PAN 48 by Bip Pares and PAN X508 by Pat Owen although there is a third painting, artist unknown, on the dustjacket usually found on PAN 48.

I have been asked to contribute a short article featuring Walpole’s books as published by PAN, I’m glad they said ‘short’ as it will be mainly covers of which I think there must be at least seventeen that I can think of off the top of my head.

I picked up the above painting by John R Keay which I was told comes from his estate. He painted it for ‘Look and Learn’ and strikes me a being a little odd. Why is there a stove, table and bed but no roof and where is the snow? John Keay, not to be confused with Jack Keay, painted at least 15 covers for PAN from 1951 with ‘Sorry You’ve Been Troubled’ through to 1958 with ‘A Gun For Inspector West’

Having mentioned last week the optimistic seller of a cover of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ on eBay made me have a look at mine again and I noticed I had two copies of GP40 from 1956 on the shelf. Looking at them side by side I think I kept both as one has the price and the other has a PAN sticker covering it up. This was often done when UK priced copies were sent abroad and they didn’t have appropriate price stickers for that particular country.

Tom Lilley is a name I’m not familiar with although I do have two of his titles published by PAN. They are ‘The Projects Section’ and ‘The K Section’ and both feature Ralph Carter. I’ve tried to find out more about Lilley but not had much success. I think he published another two titles featuring Carter but I’m not sure of the specific order as two of them claim to be his first book. Were they the same but with different titles in different countries? I’ve put all four on a page HERE.

After mentioning some covers I was after I’ve had a good week tracking them down plus one title that has been on a wants list for quite a while. They were two editions of ‘Peyton Place’ from 1972 and 1976, the missing copy of ‘Down All The Days’ from 1971 plus two editions of ‘The Pan Book of Crosswords 5’ I’m still after several books of crosswords so if anyone can help with a scan or the book if unwanted from this list then please email or comment. As always I have to mention I’m still after a copy of X705.

I picked up another copy of ‘Oliver Twist’ illustrated by Hans Helweg as it was signed. What caught my attention was the dedication is in English but the book is written in Danish.

I do love the optimism of some sellers on eBay after spotting THIS had been relisted yet again.

Recently Ray Steptoe posted on Facebook several editions of ‘The Small Woman’ On looking more closely I’ve realised there is an edition I haven’t got. He shows five spines and so I’m now looking for the 1975 variant, another to add to the ever growing wants list.

I started to make a list of PAN published authors who may have been born or died around the date of a blog. Looks like I fell at the first hurdle as I had Christy Brown down as dying on the 7th October when in fact it was September. Not wanting to waste the scans of his titles and editions I have, I’m sharing them now. I’m sure I have the 1971 edition of ‘Down All The Days’ but can I find it hence a cover taken from the web as a temporary stop gap. Christy Brown was an Irish writer and painter born in Dublin (05/06/1932) He had cerebral palsy and could only write or type with the toes of one foot. His is probably most well known for his autobiography ‘My Left Foot’ which was later made into a 1989 Academy Award-winning film of the same name. He died in Somerset aged 49 (07/09/1981)

Another excellent video from Jules Burt has him looking through his PAN Majors and later titles. I love to see those covers although as usual there are one or two clunkers amongst them.

I have been a bit distracted recently playing with my newly acquired LEGO set of ‘Mindstorms’ When I retired, but returned to work part time, I went round schools with 15 sets trying to get the pupils to use them. I found it very frustrating wanting to do it all for them as most didn’t have a clue but knew I couldn’t. I’ve hankered after a set ever since and finally bit the bullet and looked on eBay. There were sets at all prices but I found one of version 2.0 at a good price and which I prefer because of the computer programming software rather than the later version 3.0. I started to watch it expecting it to soar but was out on the night it closed so image my surprise the next day  to get an offer of 50% off as it hadn’t sold. I’m now really enjoying myself with LEGO  having nearly forgotten how much fun it is, dare I say almost as much fun as collecting PAN books?

Amazon still sell version 2.0 for £422, I paid £29.50!

I have been going through back copies of ‘The Bookseller’ and have found several references to PAN Books, some of which I’ve used before, but also quite a few new ones. I’ve selected some including one about a problem with the initial launch in 1947 which I’ve put HERE.. Others mention the launch of the PAN/Ballantine War Series on sale at ‘Fags and Mags’ and the  ‘International PAN Time’ while another refers to a ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ competition where PAN books could be won. Several of the other clipping refers to specific books which I’ll be adding to their pages over time.

I’ve come across a PAN edition of ‘Peyton Place’ I’ve not seen before but unfortunately it is in Turkey. I started a conversation with the seller but it has since gone quiet so all I have is a photo of the cover and not even a date. I may try and restart it but as $30 for postage was mentioned I’m not too sure. I’ve tacked it onto the end of my Grace Matalious page HERE as I think it is later than all the ones I have now. If any one has a spare copy and or could let me have a scan of the front and back covers plus the date then please email. This reminds me I’m still trying to find a 1972 copy of ‘Peyton Place’ as well.
UPDATE I think I have found a copy of Peyton Place from 1978 and it is in the post.

As I have mentioned I am part of group working to reopen a disused railway track as a Greenway for which we need the occasional fund raiser.  Recently we had a very interesting and informative talk on ‘The Great Train Robbery’ by Steve Geale. As he then went on to talk about local murderers this brought to mind a book I read a longtime ago which was PAN E1 ‘Encyclopedia of Murder’ by Colin Wilson and Pat Pitman from 1964. This was republished in 1984 followed up by ‘Encyclopedia of Modern Murder’ by Colin Wilson and this time Donald Seaman in 1986.  In my 1964 edition there has an erratum slip as above but I’ve compared the text in both the 1964 and 1984 editions and it seems to be the same?

Someone posted on Facebook a very small black and white screen shot of Richard Burton reading a PAN book in the film ‘Villain’ You could just about make out it was a first edition of ‘The Diamond Smugglers’ by Ian Fleming but I have managed to get a better one in colour. Both the 1960 and 1962 editions have covers by David Tayler. Another addition to the ‘PAN as seen in films’ page.

Something else that was posted on Facebook was a cover for ‘The Living Daylights’ mocked up to look like a PAN cover. I’ve tried to read the ‘number’ but failed so far. There are many sites showing pastiche PAN Bond covers which I did start listing but have now given up.

Not quite sure why but I can’t resist a Papersculpture book of which PAN published two, both by  Goldley and Creme, who were also a rock duo around the end of the 1970s..These titles are often priced high with a couple of ‘The Railway Children’ on eBay for £63 and £57. They’ve been there a while so that might be a reflection on the price, I can’t find another copy of ‘Cromwell’ currently available so to get my latest for £4.99 was a bargain. I seem to have 15 of the one and 6 of the other, maybe time to reign in this obsession and leave a few for someone else.

Having a checklist of books can be a welcome addition for any collector although they are not always complete. While sorting through boxes I found one I had forgot I had got. I think most serious collectors know of the Richard Williams list from Dragonby Press of which there were 200 first editions and 300 second (still a couple for sale from Dragonby on AbeBooks) The one I found published by Dave Gregory predates these of which there were 15 first editions and 20 second. It is useful in that it does list many variants, some of which I still need to find, but doesn’t list all the dustjackets for titles such as PAN 68 ‘Late and Soon’ of which the one I have is the only one I’ve ever come across. I’m also grateful to Rog Peyton for the checklist he has complied of PAN covers artists up to the arrival of ISBNs.

I came across a page in ‘The Bookseller’ which was published shortly after Alan Bott’s death. It is dated 27th September 1952, just ten days after he died, and has a couple of tributes to him. I wish I could find details of the memorial service to Alan which was held at St. Martins-in-the-Field parish church. The church is at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Dedicated in honour of Saint Martin of Tours, there has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period. .When its medieval and Jacobean structure was found to be near failure, the present building was constructed in an influential neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–1726. 

I’m still trying to match up the sketches I got from Hans Helweg’s wife and when I saw ‘Four Wheel Drift’ I thought it was one of his. Hans did several covers for Puffin and when I looked at the title page it didn’t mention the cover artist so I took a chance and bought it. It was only when I got home and compared it to the sketches I could see they were all very similar, particularly with the placing of the cars, but not quite there and having a better look at the book I found it did say the cover was by Dexter Brown. Any more guesses as to a title for the artwork?

I have a few signed Jack Higgins titles and when “The Eagle Has Landed’ came up in a search on eBay it made me look twice but I don’t think I’ll go for it.

I’ve finished scanning in the last of the 26 ‘Bestsellers of Literature’ I started last week. I’m still trying to find out if there was only one title with a later style of header on the front cover as on ‘Wuthering Heights’? I also found ‘The Lost Books Of Jane Austen’ by Janine Barchas shows a couple of PAN covers while a company in the States will sell you a print of ‘Wuthering Heights’ for just $65 in a frame!

I picked up an inscribed copy of ‘Shrimps for Tea’ by Josephone Blumenfeld, Alan Bott’s wife’ It is inscribed ‘For a reveared Uncle from his disrespectful niece Josephine July 1930’ which makes it a first edition. The only problem is ‘Who was the uncle?’ I though of her Father, Ralph David Blumenfeld, who had one brother, Maximillian. Josephine’s Mother, Theresa Salie, had two brothers whom I thought would be uncles but my wife reminded me that sister’s husbands could also be uncles which means another four possibilities. The brothers were Joseph and Siegfried while the sisters were Jane, husband William, Frieda, husband John, Blanche, husband Henry and Veronika, husband unknown,

I’m now taking random books of the shelves to rescan and the latest couple are GP18 ‘Cases in Court’ by Sir Patrick Hastings with editions published in 1953, 1954 and 1955. They all appear to have the same front and back cover apart from the title on the 1953 edition which is on a blue background while the others are on a yellow background. Around this time there are quite a few variations of colour for the title background, a bit like the logo on the spine. Patrick Gardiner Hastings  was born 17/03/1880 in London and died 26/02/1952 also in London.

A long time ago I made a page of the titles in the ‘Bestsellers of Literature’ series but the images were very small. I am currently rectify this by rescanning front and rear covers and is a work in progress. Most of the titles follow the same design of cover apart from ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Moll Flanders’ which are listed as in the series but were published before the cover style was launched in July 1967. The majority of the covers from 1967 onwards are by John Raynes, with four by Pat Owen, and I got John to sign a few copies for me but unfortunately I put them away before the ink was properly dry! Interestingly ‘Moll Flanders’ was misnumber in the third printing as X438 and not X433. X438 is ‘A Prince for Inspector West’

I always like to pick up proof copies of PAN titles and this time it was for ‘The Battle of Britain’ by Leonard Mosley published in 1969 as ‘The making of the film’ to coincide with the release of the film of the same year.

I spotted what I would call ‘a couple of oddities’ on eBay. The first was for a hardback reworking of the 1955 edition of ‘Casino Royale’. It looks like it was done from scratch and not just a paperback edition converted. It sold for £73 while the other is still on sale at £134 and is for two bespoke cases for ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Moonraker’. As the seller hastens to add ‘the books are NOT included’

Fellow PAN Fan Jeremy Birch sent me an envelope he found in his M207 copy of ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ It contains several black and white photos of scenes around Dorchester and annotated on the back with the references to passages in the book. Jeremy is happy to give them to the Hardy Society and as he doesn’t use email he asked me. I contacted them and by return I got a message to say could they see them as they would be very interested so I have sent them on. I have put a couple of examples on the M207 page.

Having mentioned the PAN logo being in different coloured rectangles last week made me take another look and I was really surprised to see how many variants there were on the spines in the earlier editions before they settled down to using yellow.

These are just a few of the more distinct colours as some may be faded and there are even more on the dust jackets with one being a pink logo in a green box.

Sorting out Dick Francis titles I found I had three editions of ‘The Sport of Queens’ and laying them in a row I think the covers got progressively worse as the price increased from 70p to £4.99. Richard Stanley Francis (31/010/1920 – 14/02/2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer whose novels centre on horse racing in England. More than forty of these novels became international best-sellers.