René Louis Brantonne (3/1/1903 to 6/10/1979) was a prolific French illustrator and graphic designer who died this week 47 years ago at the age of 77. His defining legacy is his vibrant, otherworldly cover art for the legendary ‘ANTICIPATION‘ science fiction paperback series. Betweeno 1951 and 1977 Brantonne illustrated hundreds of covers and fundamentally shaping the visual identity of mid-century French science fiction. I’ve included him because as I’ve mentioned before publisher Fleuve Noir recycled PAN covers and I think they are my second favourite after PANs of course. Brantonne was one of several well known French artists such as Jean-Michel Nicollete and Mandy (Philippe Mandilas) who painted s/f covers. To find out more about ‘ANTICIPATION’ and Brantonne HERE is some suggested further reading. I’ve still got a couple of hundred more covers to scan, it’s a work in progress.

I was pleasantly surprised to get an unexpected letter from Australia recently. In it was a bookmark to go with ‘The Art of Renato Fratini’ which was apparently for original supporters which I had forgotten all about. I’ve now tucked it into my copy of the book for safe keeping.

Margaret Powell (October 1907 to April 1984) whose best-selling books about her experiences in domestic service inspired the TV series ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ and ‘Downton Abbey’ was born in Hove. One of seven children of a house painter and charwoman, the family lived with her grandmother in three rooms. Her parents could not afford to let her take up the grammar school scholarship she won and instead, at the age of 13, she became a laundress and later a kitchen maid. After marriage and motherhood, noting that she had nothing to talk about with her eldest son who was preparing to go to university, she took evening classes, passing her O-levels at the age of 58. Her memoir, ‘Below Stairs’ was published in 1968, and was an immediate success. Further books followed and Margaret became a popular guest on television talk shows. A blue plaque marks her birthplace and her name is on a bus in Brighton.

I have to say, if there was a prize for the most unaspiring series of book covers, then these could well be in the running but then again that could just be me?

I picked up a copy of the film tie in of ‘Hopscotch’ by Brian Garfield although I wasn’t impressed with the cover. What I found interesting was the the ISBN on the back was different from the ISBN inside so it appears PAN just took the 1976 text block and slapped a 1980 cover on it. Now wondering why it needed two ISBNs?

While searching for ‘Piccolo Explorers’ I hadn’t realised how many times the artwork had been used on other editions of some of the titles and by several publishers. Looking at dates, some proceed the Piccolo editions while other are after them. I have included four examples but I’m sure there must be others. Several are off the net so hopefully whoever posted them won’t mind me including them on the page.

I do like ‘Books for Keeps’ although copies are not that easy to come across but they do contain some interesting material including the adverts. In the 9th July 1981 magazine there is one for the launch of the ‘Piccolo Factbooks’ for the next day, the 10th and it gives the background to the series. You can see the page HERE plus, like the ‘Explorers’, some copies from other publishers with the same artwork.

Having mentioned a ‘look a like’ with the ‘Child of the Sun’ here is another one with a similar composition to an earlier edition. This time it is for X210 ‘Mister Moses’ by Max Catto with artwork by one of my favourite artists, Glenn Steward. I am wondering if he based his on the Heinemann edition from 1961 with artwork by Renaro Fratini.

I thought Judy Blume titles were either published as PAN Piccolo/Piper or as PAN Horizons editions but having a better look I have found a couple that were published as straight PANs, I’m sure there must be more but so far it is only ‘Forever’ and ‘Letters to Judy’ The latter title is a PAN while all the others with the same style of cover are Pipers.

Looking through the large format edition of ‘Everything Your Doctor Would Tell You If He had The Time’ by Claire Rayner I was struck by how familiar the style of a lot of the text illustrations were. I checked the credit list at the back which confirmed that Alan Cracknell was one of the contributors. I do miss my chats with Alan and working as his unofficial agent as he didn’t do email.

Grant Thiessen, Canadian bookdealer, is currently going through my website and letting me know of anything to correct which is mainly incorrect ISBNs as I used a lot of ‘cut and paste’ making the pages. In one of his emails he pointed out that I didn’t appear to have a ‘Danube Edition’ of ‘The Act of Creation’ by Arthur Koestler. I must admit I hadn’t noticed so the error has now been rectified. I’ve also added Koestler’s later title ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ to the page as it was in the same format. PAN published several Koestler titles as Picador which I’ll add later but also two as PANs, ‘The Call-Girls’ and ‘The Case of the Midwife Toad’ with the latter later published as a Picador.

Random title of the week is for ‘The Boston Strangler’ by Gerold Frank. PAN published three editions that I know of with the first edition being the elusive E13. It took me a while to get a copy but luckily a PAN Fan sent me one. It surprises me how often the second edition with the film tie-in cover but with a SBN and E on the spine is passed off as the first. This is the same as ‘The Life of Ian Fleming’ with a listed first rarely having the magic E12 on the cover and spine.

Amongst the David Tayler covers were a couple of black and white photos of book covers. It was only when Rog Peyton pointed out they didn’t actually exist as such I had a better look. ‘Cimarron’ was a book by Edna Ferber not James Walter Bellah who didn’t exist but there was a James Warner Bellah who wrote westerns. ‘Stage to Sweetwater’ seemed to just appear as a short story from 1955 in ‘Ranch Romances’ As the covers were in b/w I though I’d put them through KOLARIZE and I’m pretty impressed with the results, a really easy to use program if you skip the tweaking bits but you do have to pay about 50p an image if you don’t want ‘Ks’ all over it. Rog also suggested a possible title for the mystery cover which is on the same page. although not by Tayler but by another PAN stalwart, Roger Hall.

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?