PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at  www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

“The Gun” C S Forester

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While sorting through some later titles I began to notice how many editions of ‘The Gun’ by C. S. Forester I seem to have on my shelves. As you can see I have found at least 7 different ones albeit some having very subtle differences. The book was made in to the film ‘The Pride and The Passion’ in 1957 

The cover artwork is by David Tayler who lived in Brighton. He did several covers for PAN (more in another blog) but he would take two or three weeks to produce a cover whereas others like Sam Peffer would take two or three days hence Tayler didn’t find it very profitable. I’ve also included an image of the 2001 reprint using the same artwork, I wonder if they acknowledge the source?

Return of ‘The Saint’

saintIn my last but one blog I mentioned the recycling of an PAN image used by Hodder for their 60’s ‘Saint’ series. I have now found and added another 10 I had but I still don’t know if any of them feature second hand artwork.
I did find a couple were signed by Gordon King and contacted him. He promptly replied and named another two unsigned ones as his. We are chatting further next month and I’ll list the PAN covers (I know at least 2) that he did along with other examples of his artwork later.

Exhibition update. Still no offers of the last title needed although I did see my doctor (socially I hasten to add) and she has promised to ask around her friends in India.

Canadian Connections

PAN was always popular in Canada and Australia with them occasionally bringing out customised titles. I recently came across X730 ‘Night Without Darkness’ by Ken Orvis which had been overprinted for the Canadian market but otherwise is the same as the UK edition being printed in Aylesbury.

HarlequinThe second Canadian connection is that I acquired the checklist produced by Harlequin covering their first 25 tears. I was hoping it would list the titles jointly published by PAN and Harlequin so I could confirm if it was 11. Unfortunately it just lists the numbers and titles without any additional information but it does show ‘The Four Just Men’ on the back cover.

 

Déjà Vu Again

Back in March I posted about a French book having the same picture on its cover as a PAN one. I have now come across another instance of recycling images.

I spotted that ‘The Saint’s Getaway PAN G294 from 1959 has a cover that looks very much like a PEFF and which has been heavily edited for the Hodder 1965 copy of the same title. I find I have 6 Saint titles from Hodder in this series style and all of them look as thought the artwork has been acquired from elsewhere (Hodder was briefly part of a consortium that bought out PAN Books) Anyone recognise the others?SaintGetaway

Update to my posting about appearing in the papers. So far I have had all on no responses to my request for help in finding the last PAN title X705 ‘PAN Junior Crosswords Book 3’ but have been asked several times ‘What will you do when completing the collection?’ I have been working on this for a while, hence the Hodder titles for my other website www.tikit.org to which covers get added on an ad hoc basis.

Finally, as a tail note, not sure if there is a link between my exhibition at Walsall Museum and the news that has appeared in the papers this week, I hope not.