Having picked up what appeared to be an unread copy of ‘Child of the Sun’ by Kyle Onstott and Lance Horner at Baddesley Clinton bookfair recently I looked to see how many other editions PAN published as I knew there was at least one other but it appears it was just the two. I have no idea as to cover artist for the 1977 but I’m wondering if the 1968 edition might be by Hans Helweg as he painted the Onstott covers for ‘Falconhurst Fancy’ and ‘The Tattooed Rood’ in the same year. I also thought it might be by the elusive artist Barbara Walton who painted the hardback cover for W H Allen in 1966 but on looking at them closely there are some minor differences. Did it need to be redone by someone so that all the crown and shoulder could be seen to centralise the figure? I’m also puzzling over why the order of the authors names were swapped over between editions?

I also noticed while looking along the shelves for the titles I needed I saw that the above, at a quick glance, seemed to be the only title with an SBN but no price letter below the logo.

Having given a quick mention to ‘The Art of Renato Fratini’ I knew Jules Burt would include it in one of his great videos and HERE it is. Nice to see my website gets referenced in the book at the back.

A while back I was in conversation with the actor Gwilym Lloyd who runs, as another string to his bow, Paprika Prints. He had produced several calendars featuring book covers from different genres but not PAN, well not up to now. I scanned in several covers for him which are included and the 2027 edition is now available from Paprika Prints.

I was looking through the HG2H Scrapbook on ‘X’ when I was reminded of something I’d spotted awhile back. It was a press release for the ceremony when Douglas Adams was presented with the first of his three ‘Golden Pan Awards’ for selling over a million copies of one title, which in this case was ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ There was also a photo of David Dixon dressed as Ford Prefect which Chat GP told me was from episode 2, then episode 1 and finally from ‘The Making of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ I have scrutinised all of these and not spotted this shot which is supposed to be in Douglas Adams studio with his award on the shelf behind?

Looking at ‘In The House of Brede’ by Rumer Godden I am once again puzzled as to why PAN felt the need to publish two editions so close together. Holding my two copies I thought one would be the first printing from 1970 as the other a second from 1971 but in fact both say they are second printings from 1971. I’m presuming the first would be the one with a cover by Pat Owen as it is 5p cheaper than the other. I have added it to my list of Pat Owen titles as I didn’t actually have one for 1970. Just wondering who did the other cover as I think it looks a little strange but reminds me of another similar title. It was not as if one was a TV tie-in as the series, staring Diana Rigg, wasn’t on until 1975.

I may have mentioned before I have a thing about boxed sets and especially those from James Herriot, no idea why. So when I saw this double set on eBay I thought I’d make an offer until I saw the postage price. I queried this with the seller who sent the following confusing reply.

So still none the wiser as to would he or would he not send to me here in the UK, the listing implies he does, and he could review what is patently obvious a stupid postage cost probably generated by some algorithm. I remember my son flying return Birmingham to Hamilton with Globespan for less than that postage. It would have been cheaper for me to go and pick it up but for some reason or other they went bust!

While making one of my visits to PizGloria to see what’s new I was interested in a link Bazeer had put to a YouTube video by Gary Sassaman. It was number 28 in his series ‘Tales From My Spinner Rack’ and this time it was looking at James Bond paperbacks. I was pleased to see PAN titles were prominently displayed. Bazeer mentions it in on his website as he gets a thanks and a plug at the end.

This weeks random author is Nicholas Blake, the pseudonym of poet Cecil Day-Lewis. PAN published five of his novels in the first ten years of PAN specifically PAN 99 ‘A Question of Proof‘, PAN 111 ‘There’s Trouble Brewing‘, PAN 237 ‘Minute for Murder‘, PAN 308 ‘Head of a Traveller‘ and PAN G282 ‘The Whisper in the Gloom‘ and then there seems to have been a lull until 1971/2 when they published four more titles with rather unimpressive covers, well that’s my opinion. Cecil Day-Lewis (27/04/1904 to 22 /05/1972) was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death. The mystery stories he wrote under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake mostly featured the fictional detective Nigel Strangeways, starting with ‘A Question of Proof’

….. and it has finally arrived with a thump on the doorstep, all 448 pages. It seems a long time ago that I contributed to a Kick Starter project for a book on the work of prolific artist Renato Fratini. It is certainly a weighty tome and covers the full range of his work from film poster to magazines etc and a large section on book covers. It was to this I turned first to see which, if any, PAN covers were included. It was a bit sparse but I was pleased to see ‘One Love is Enough’ as I was never sure if this was by Fratini. The book is called ‘The Art of Renato Fratini’ and is by Timothy R Smith.

Having recently been in communication with Jooce Garrett again he has very kindly let me have some of his original artwork. I now have the paintings for ‘Jean Towards Another Day’ and ‘Vipers & Co’ I have added them to his page so you will need to scroll down to see them. There is also the artworld for ‘Dealer’s Move’ but as to whether or not it was ever used by Pan is debatable. I’ve included a couple of reference photos for ‘Vipers & Co’ featuring Christine Isteed and Lizzie Moyes. It was Lizzie that was actually used and is held by John Barker of Artist Partners, while Tiddles is restrained by Jooce’s first wife, Judy.

Having recently been featuring the PAN artwork by David Tayler I acquired, I have now got around to scanning in all the western artwork that was included in the box as I had a request to ask if I would do so. I know they are not PAN but I think the are interesting in their own right with covers from several publishers mainly from the 1950s. There are five roughs at the end to which I would like to put a title so as usual if any one can help please get in touch.

We managed to pop over to Baddesley Clinton to visit the book fair which runs to the end of the month. I was a bit disappointed in that there appeared to be just a couple of extra tables by the regular bookshop. So as to not waste our visit there we went for a walk in the gardens around the pool and when coming out at the front of the house what did we spy but several gazebos with many more books and many happy customers. I certainly changed my opinion, it was just we’ve not seen them do this before.

I ended up with just these four at £1 each, all of which I already have, but the top three were in unread condition while ‘Solo’ was in slightly undersized Royal format and was printed in India, this one has a sticker from Prakash Books so looks like it was sold there as well.

I do like to come across PAN books that were not always published in the UK. A case in point is ‘The Rise and Fall of Squizzy Taylor’ originally published by the Jacaranda Press in 1971 and then republished by PAN Books (Australia) Pty. in 1981. The book traces the life of Melbourne’s most flamboyant 1920s gangster, famous for bootlegging, protection rackets, and evading the law before his violent death in a shootout..

I was sorting books on the shelf, this time the Five Novels from Nova Publishing, who published the ‘New Worlds’ magazine, which made me wonder if there was any connection between four of their five covers and PAN? Nova numbered them as 1, 1, 2, 3, and 4 and it is the later four I asked Chat GP about and the response was ‘Yes’ because of the connection through Gerard Quinn and a slight visual similarity with a yellow rounded rectangle. I’ll leave it to you to agree or disagree,

I admire the artwork of Gino D’Achille who could turn his hand to so many types of image from ancient history to romance through the ages, science fiction and warfare and HERE are a couple of his covers from the last mentioned genre. There seems to have been only two titles in the ‘Recon’ series although the author wrote several of the ‘Able Team’ books.

Sorry this is a bit late as I meant to post in a couple of weeks ago but the pop up book shop is back in Wolverhampton at the Community Hub in the Mander Centre until the 15th August, 10:00 until 17:00, then back on the 17th October until the 15th November. Also the Annual Book Fair is on at NT Baddesley Clinton until August 30th from 10:00 to 17:00 every day. I shall be along there this week as I always seem to find an interesting item or two (or even more)

I think this will be the last of the David Tayler PAN roughs for a bit but I am hoping to acquire some more. This time it is for ‘Tramp Royal’ by Michael Bruce. Sir Michael William Selby Bruce, 11th Baronet (27/03/1894 to 02/05/1957) was an author and soldier. He went to Abingdon School and later joined the British South Africa Police as a trooper. After the First World War service with the Royal Artillery at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, Bruce became a traveller, largely in Africa and South America, and an author and newspaper columnist. During the Second World War he served in a barrage balloon unit, with 901 (County of London) squadron, Royal Air Force Regiment. Later in the war he was Senior Weapons Instructor for glider pilots at Bridgnorth. I do have quite a few more Tayler roughs for westerns which weren’t published by PAN. I am being encouraged to put them on the web so they might appear one day.

Just when you think you have them all up pops a different cover. This one is for the 1973 edition of ‘The Big Story’ by Morris West. This makes it five, I have including three numbered G226 one of which was for the 1965 film tie-in when the title was changed to ‘The Crooked Road’

A couple of blogs back I included a list of the letters and prices PAN used for their eclectic numbering system pre SBN (Standard Book Number) and then for SBNs on the spine before ISBNs came in. I thought I had listed them all but on taking my 1970 copy of ‘East Of Eden’ by John Steinbeck off the shelf I noticed it was a ‘C’ which made it 8/- or 40p today. Now wondering how many more I might have missed?

     
A while back I mentioned I have a couple of hundred French S/F titles in the ‘Anticipation’ series by the Paris based publisher Fleuve Noir (Black River). The first ones were because they used the same artwork as PAN titles of which, up to now, I have found eight and which I’ve called Recycled Artwork. I’m sure there must be more as there were 2,001 titles in the series and apparently, unlike PAN, there were no omissions or duplications of numbers but there were a couple with the same title but with different numbers published between 1951 and 1969. Authors went into the publishers Paris offices where a lot of the artwork was kept and just chose what they though would sell their book regardless of what it actually showed. Fleuve Noir acquired at lot of artwork from two agencies, namely ‘Young Artist’ and ‘Sarah Brown’

YOUNG ARTISTS AGENCY
The “Young Artists Agency” (founded in London in 1968 and now known as Arena Artists Management) supplied science fiction artwork to the French publisher Fleuve Noir during the 1970s and 1980s. Founded by John Spencer, the agency flourished under Alison Eldred and launched the careers of many legendary artists of sci-fi art, including Jim Burns, Peter Elson, Angus McKie, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes, Ian Miller and Colin Hay. The artwork provided by the agency was visually groundbreaking.

SARAH BROWN AGENCY
Carol Butfoy founded and ran the “Sarah Brown Agency” along with artist Peter Elson and specialised in representing iconic science fiction and fantasy artists whose work defined the book covers of the 1970s and 1980s. The name “Sarah Brown Agency” was entirely fictional, “Sarah” because it was a name Elson liked, and paired it with “Brown” because they felt it sounded highly professional and reliable. They focused heavily on airbrush art, spaceship designs, and high-concept fantasy imagery used primarily for paperbacks and novels.

FLEUVE NOIR PUBLISHERS
Founded in 1949 by Armand de Caro, Fleuve Noir is a major French publishing house that revolutionised the European popular literature market. It encouraged reading in post-war France by producing affordable, pocket-sized genre fiction, specifically targeting crime, spy thrillers, horror and science fiction. It later became part of Editis, a French group of publishing companies, a subsidiary of Czech Media Invest. It is the second-largest French publishing group, after Hachette Livre. Well known publications from them include L’OSS 117 by Jean Bruce, a French James Bond and the German space series of Perry Rhodan.

Regarding the PAN covers that were reused for the French titles I have spoken to Ian Miller, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes and Peter Gudynas about their experience and they all said they were happy as they did get paid. Still waiting to hear back from Angus McKie and Nancy Petley-Jones but I’m told Angus doesn’t talk about his work these days.

I have about 140 on the web page with probably the same again to add to it and a few get done every now and again so keep checking in.

UPDATE Thanks to Rog Peyton sending me more covers for my Recycled Artwork page I’ve decided that I’ll not just feature PANs as originally intended but now also included artwork form other publishers so happy to hear of any more.

With just two identifiable David Tayler roughs for PAN to go, this week we have G141 ‘The Reluctant Legionnaire’ by Michael Alexander. Michael Charles Alexander was born in London (20/11/1920 to 19/12/2004) the son of Rear-Admiral Charles Otway Alexander and the Dutch patrician Antonia van Geermans, making him half English and half Dutch. He was educated at Stowe and then Sandhurst. He distinguished himself during the Second World War but was captured behind enemy lines and sent to Colditz Castle. After the war Alexander pursued a varied career in publishing and business and authored several notable works including GP46 ‘The Privileged Nightmare’ jointly with Giles Romilly.

To tie in with the launch of the film of Mario Puzo’s book ‘The Godfather’ in 1970 PAN informed book sellers all about what display materials were available. This is a page from ‘The Bookseller’ magazine

Ralph Holmes Vernon Hunt was the nephew of Alan Bott and joined Pan Books as Sales Director, working his way up to Managing Director in 1969. He had previously worked at Hudson’s book shop in Birmingham and I had an email from blog reader Alun who worked there from 1973 to 1985 and remembers Vernon Hunt and said he was a nice chap. What always amuses me though is that Vernon Hunt was used as the model for James Bond and John Hadfield referred to him as a ‘virile adventurer of the book trade’ as in this letter! John Charles Heywood Hadfield (16/06/1907 to 10/10/1999) was an English writer and publisher, best known for his 1959 comic novel ‘Love on a Branch Line’

Looking at him in the photo below, third from left, I can’t really see it myself.

This week we have two roughs by David Tayler neither of which look like the finished cover for M33 ‘Annie’s Captain’ by Kathryn Hulme. PAN also published G302 ‘The Wild Place’ and G291 ‘The Nun’s Story’ by Hulme. ‘The Nun’s Story’ was made into a film in 1959 starring Audrey Hepburn and was the inspiration for the early PAN editions cover artwork by Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer. Kathryn Cavarly Hulme (6/1/1900 60 25/8/1981) was an American novelist and memoirist.

While looking at my C S Forester covers I’m left wondering why PAN felt the need to change the one for ‘Plain Murder’ just a few years apart. As far as I can tell it wasn’t because there was going to be a complete relaunch of Forester titles with a new look as there seems to be only a couple and not really amongst my favourites. I think, if I had to chose, I prefer the earlier ‘Plain Murder’ from 1970

I’m often asked about the eclectic numbering system for PAN books and I explain, as I will now, it is all down to price as in this table I made. If anyone knows of any I missed please send me a message. If you are a completest then you need to watch our for examples as in the above which are identical apart from the 4th printing went up 6 pence from the 3rd. Just a letter on the spine was kept to show price when PAN switched to SBNs but dropped with the introduction of ISBNs.

This weeks David Tayler rough is for G168 ‘Zoo Quest to Guiana’ by David Attenborough. I was going to include this in the week of his 100th birthday but somehow it got missed. The rough is not that different from the finished cover apart from the background but interestingly the original artwork and printers proof differs from the final cover in not having the yellow flash.

After featuring Jooce Garrett last week he sent me a photo of Brian Sanders which he thought might have been used for the cover of ‘Dealer’s Move’ I sent it to Brian and he emailed back to say “Gosh I don’t even remember modelling for that.  I Certainly don’t have the original and am sure that Lizzie would not have allowed me to keep it had it been given to me. Did any of the Krays ever have moustache’s? I look more like a cross between Hitler and Stalin than one of the lads. The things we used to do for friends!” It’s possible that PAN didn’t actually publish a copy of this book although Macmillan did.

Having mentioned ‘Page and Screen’ by John Mabey I was looking through and picking out PAN editions to check against my copies. It was when I got to the TV tie-in for ‘Wings’ by Barry Thomas I noticed something I hadn’t previously. There were two titles and I had just put them side by side on the shell without noticing only one was published by PAN! The other was published by the BBC, the dilemma is now do I leave it there, probably not.