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

A bit more from George and getting paid twice?

Following on from my reference to how the painting for “Testament” by George Sharp was turned upside down I also found the same image used by Chatto and Windus for their hardback edition. The gun is again shown in yet another position to the original and George tells me he didn’t get paid for this edition! “First Blood” from 1973 has a cover in a very similar style but George says it is not his and I can’t find a name as yet.

I often wonder if it was the case with other covers that artists didn’t get paid twice especially ones like the Shute series from 1974 by Roger Coleman when they were used in the USA by Ballantine with whom PAN, I think, had a link through Ian and Betty Ballantine (Ian Ballantine was connected with Penguin in the late 40’s but there was a falling out)BiroAnother series where the same covers appeared on the UK and USA editions are titles by Jean Plaidy used by PAN in the 60/70’s and by Putnams in the 70’s. I’ve put a few HERE. I can find no reference to a cover artist for PAN editions so I bought the hardback Putnam edition of ‘Murder Most Royal’ as US publisher usually credit the artist but unfortunately not in this case. Does anyone know who he/she/they might be? The shield above appears on the title page of the PAN Plaidy “Stuart Series” and is by the late PAN cover stalwart Val Biro.