I recently heard, via Rog Peyton, from Marion Ellis who was a friend of David Tayler. Her husband took photographs of David posing as references for his book covers for which David got paid £40. She sent me five which I have put on the page HERE which is my guess as to which cover they went with. Do you agree?

Sir Thomas Hicks (17/12/936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain’s first teen idol rock and roll star, actor, sculptor and writer. He wrote a children’s novel, ‘Quincy’ about a reject toy trying to save himself and his fellow rejects in a bin in the basement of a toy store. published in 1981. When I read this I was reminded of something similar, ‘The Raggy Dolls’, a British cartoon series which aired on TV in 1986. The series is set in Mr Grimes’ Toy Factory, where imperfect dolls are thrown into a reject bin. Any similarity I’m sure is purely coincidental! ‘The Raggy Dolls’ books were published by Boxtree, another PAN imprint.

It’s been a while since I communicated with Johnny Mains when he was talking about producing the ‘The PAN Book of Horror Stories Scrapbook’ which, unfortunately, didn’t materialise. I have the Les Edwards artwork that was going to be the cover and I know I have shown it before but it is worth a second look.. The reason Johnny got in touch was it was his 50th birthday and he got a personalised card from artist Richard Wells which makes me a little jealous. Click HERE to see it.

This week the David Tayler rough is for ‘Oh Promised Land’ by James Street. Street (15/10/1903 to 298/08/1954) was an American journalist, minister, and writer. He wrote at least 16 novels of which PAN published just the one. Apparently he was giving out awards, laid his head on the table and was dead from a heart attack at the age of 50!

As the above had a film linked to its title this advert seems appropriate to include here.

It was quite a while ago that I made a page to show the ‘Morph‘ titles from Piccolo. I thought I had all the three but it turns out there was a fourth. This is ‘The Big Match’ and now added to the page.

We spent the Easter weekend over indulging in food and chocolate in Newcastle Upon Tyne. I was hoping to visit some bookshops if they were open but didn’t manage it although my cousin very kindly came along and took us to Seaton Delaval Hall. We also visited the Beamish Museum which would have been really good if we didn’t have the Black Country Living Museum and Blist Hill Museum on our doorsteps, places we visit often. It got marked down because the sweet shop didn’t have coltsfoot rock while both of our two local museums do.

As I mentioned last week I had not noticed the passing of artist Paul Sample (19/02/1947 to 27/01/2026) back in January. We often emailed, with me usually asking for more information on a specific cover. He is probably most well known to PAN Fans for painting the Tom Sharpe covers but he also did others for PAN. We also lost Len Deighton (18/02/1929 to 15/03/2026) more recently and PAN published a couple of his books such as ‘Bomber’ plus including endorsements on several other titles.

Not PAN but looking through assorted bits and pieces I came across these A4 adverts for ‘The Ninja’. It’s a pity there aren’t seven then we would have had all the colours of the rainbow. They come in a folder made of what seems like bright red flock wallpaper which may have a significance that eludes me.

This weeks David Tayler rough is for what seems to be a rather elusive PAN title, namely ‘Blackwater’ by Frank O’Rourke. PAN published another book with the same title but by H L Tredree which seems to be much more common. More on this title in a couple of weeks.

FOOTNOTE As was pointed out on a James Bond Facebook page there are some very optimistic sellers out there. Now how many copies of this book have I got?

This weeks rough from David Tayler is for 424 ‘Glory Hole’ by William MacLeod Raine. The last time I featured this cover my site was number 1 in Germany for those of a certain persuasion. I’m sure they were very disappointed to find it wasn’t quite what they were after but I hope I educated them to the fact there were more interesting things that knot holes in toilet walls.

Watching one of Jules Burt’s very informative videos recently I was interested to see a copy of ‘SF News’ I’d not come across before. It mentions two titles by Richard Cowper on the front page and I’m pleased to say I have the original artwork for ‘Twilight of Briareus‘ by Geoff Tayler. ‘Galactic Warlord‘ is featured on the back page with artwork for this, and other titles in this series, by Terry Oakes.

If you have a spare £5,000+ and are looking for something to buy then how about a PAN 1976 copy of ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ signed by  eight members of the cast of the 1976 film namely Donald Sutherland (Liam Devlin), Michael Caine (Kurst Steiner), Jenny Agutter (Molly), Larry Hagman (Colonel Pitts), Sven-Bertil Taube (Captain von Neustadt), Judy Geeson (Pamela), Jean Marsh (Joanna Grey) and Siegfried Rauch (Sergeant Brandt). 

Although it was back at the start of the year I’ve only just heard of the passing of artist Paul Sample on the 27th January. As I’m currently in Newcastle Upon Tyne I’ll have more on Paul next week.

This week there are two David Tayler roughs for G201 ‘Sabotage is Suspected’ by John Baker White. One is a pencil rough closer to the finished cover than the painted one which is completely different but does have the title written along the bottom edge. Baker White (12/08/1902 to 10/12/1988) was born in West Malling, Kent. He became a very early member of the British Fascists when he undertook undercover operations for Sir George Makgill’s Industrial Intelligence Bureau.  In 1945 he was elected a Conservative politician and was a journalist and author. PAN also published his book G212 ‘The Big Lie’

This weeks random author is Desmond Lowden. Lowden (29/09/1937 to 19/05/2024) who was born in Winchester and went to St. Pilgrim’s School there. He started work at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios, first working as a runner and then moving on to assistant editor. Desmond travelled to work in the South of France as a deckhand and then to Crete as a TEFL teacher. He married his wife Gillian while in Athens, and the couple returned to Winchester, where they had two children. Lowden was award the ‘Silver Dagger’ in 1989. PAN published five on his novels one of which, ‘Bellman and True’ was made into a film in 1988.

A couple of blogs ago I mentioned ‘War Story’ by Derek Robinson but the link went to the stamps in one copy of the book I have and not the cover as intended. Hopefully the link above is now the correct one. I’m wondering if anyone has a copy that doesn’t have a sticker over what I presume was the original price in Australia and were there other countries included? I was hoping it was an Australian printing but alas not the case.

UPDATES Having mentioned ‘Skeletons’ by Glendon Swarthout and how BookFinder mentioned there was a copy available but didn’t list where, my email to them must have done something as it appeared shortly after and I bought it to add to the page. I have also added three more ‘Donkey’ books by Elisabeth Svendsen.

In amongst the Tayler bits and pieces I picked up recently was a rough with ‘Avalanche’ penciled on the bottom. I thought it didn’t look like the cover I remembered and I was right. I can’t see a signature on my copy unless it’s under the price sticker.

While looking through all the David Tayler printer’s proofs I spotted something I’ve never seen before. ‘A Town Like Alice’ has a gold background to the title which I’m presuming was because this was intended to be on the 1,000th title published by PAN. Was it too expensive to actually use it, can anyone throw any light on it?

PAN published the first five titles in the ‘Yellowthread Steet’ series by William Marshall. He wrote 16 books about Detective Chief Inspector Harry Ffeifer of the Royal Hong Kong Police and there was a 13 part TV series loosely based on Marshall’s books in 1990. According to Wikipedia William Leonard Marshall was born in Sydney in 1944. He worked as a playwright, journalist, proofreader, and morgue attendant and was a teacher in an Irish prison. He was also the author of several series of police novels set across the globe and in various centuries. He lived in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Wales, Ireland, and USA, before returning to Australia in 1983 with his wife and daughter. He died in 2003.

As I mentioned last week I recently pick up a box of David Tayler related material when I visited Maurice Flanagan at Zardoz Books in Westbury. There are literally dozens of printers proofs of his covers plus several roughs both painted and drawn in pencil. I’ll be featuring them in the coming weeks as blog items. The first one is for PAN 434 ‘The Gun Tamer’ by Max Brand where the rough is the mirror image of the final artwork. I have also included a link on the front page of my website to a pencil rough by Tayler for ‘Lieutenant Hornblower’ until some ‘new’ news comes up.

The CD ‘Come Spy With Us’ has a PAN pastiche, or is that homage, cover. Why they had to put fake crease lines on it I don’t know as, annoyingly, we get enough of those anyway. It has 25 themes to ‘spy’ related film and television series. In the accompanying booklet they feature a few PAN books covers along side a bit of blurb.

While in Warwick I picked up a copy of ‘Down Among the Donkeys’ by Elisabeth Svendsen as it looked vaguely familiar but was published by Whittet Books, a publisher I hadn’t come across before. On getting home I found why it rang a bell as it was a title previously published by PAN with the same cover but with the PAN logo covered over. I have a few examples of this sort of thing including Totem titles from Canada and Hinkler in Australia. PAN also published ‘The Great Escape’ by Elisabeth Svendsen as a Piccolo. Both titles are illustrated by Eve Bygrave.

I managed to make it over to the Pop Up Bookshop in Wolverhampton and there is certainly a lot of books considering it is only has a temporary stay for a few times a year. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything that caught my eye although it seemed well attended with people holding handfuls of books but they looked a little newer that ones I was after. If you are thinking of going here is the location and opening times again. It’s in the Community Hub in the Mander Centre until 21st March and the opening hours are Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 9.30am to 5pm, Sunday 11am to 4pm.

We didn’t make it to our annual stay in the camper on Warwick Racecourse before Christmas last year as unfortunately it was our sister in laws funeral in Bridlington. So to avoid loosing our booking fee we moved it to last week when the site reopened and of course we had to visit the secondhand book shop at the NT property of Baddesley Clinton on the way over. The photo shows just one of the several rooms they have, I think this one was mainly non fiction. They have made over a £1,000,000 from books donated by visitors including us. I bought three for 50p each and was convinced I hadn’t got two of them and of course I was wrong. One of the perils of not having wi-fi to check. One being ‘Inspector West Makes Haste’, another being ‘War Story’ with interesting stamps inside and the third being ‘A Radio for Kevin’ in the Wellington Square reading series. I had to have this although modesty forbids me mentioning who wrote the software for the BBC Model B computer to accompany this series. They are having their annual Book Fair from August 8th for three weeks so hopefully we won’t be away this year. While we were over there I visited several charity shops but the one secondhand bookshop in Warwick was closed at the time. We did got to the MAD Museum in Stratford which we can highly recommend if you are around there although nothing to do with books.

Our blue camper parked up at Warwick Racecourse site right by the finishing post. The other vehicles are not as close as they look but those JCB flags really made a noise as they rattled on their posts every time the wind blew.

It was down to Westbury yesterday (08/03/2026) to the Book Fair and Open Day at Zardoz Books organised by Maurice Flanagan where we also bumped into Jules Burt. It was busy with more people turning up as we left. I came away with three books, three David Tayler roughs and a big blue box of mystery items related to David Tayler. I’ll be working my way through it and items will be appearing in future blogs.

This weeks random author is Glendon Swarthout (08/04/1918 to 23/08/1992) who was an American writer and novelist. Several of his novels were made into films including ‘Where the Boys Are’, ‘They Came to Cordura’ and ‘The Shootist’, which was John Wayne’s last work. These were all published by PAN plus another three. I couldn’t find if I had a second printing of ‘They Came to Cordura’ so I bought a cheap bundle with this included. I then found the copy misplaced on the shelf so was a bit miffed until they arrived when I found they were all titles in unread condition. I replaced all but one of the copies I already had with them. I’m looking for a copy of ‘Skeletons’ as the only one I’ve found so far is in India. Glendon was inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame which is in the library of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. Just as an aside I have been to this museum a few years ago when we stayed in one of Buffalo Bill’s cabins. The 83 log cabins originally housed workers building the City of Cody in 1914.

I’m still trying to find out if PAN actually published a third printing of ‘Trouble in July’ by Erskine Caldwell for which I have the artwork by Hans Helweg. I made a page of the 1964 Caldwell titles that are down as re-do in Helweg’s ledger for which he got paid £50 16s for each but I’ve just found I missed one, namely ‘Georgia Boy’ so the omission is now rectified. I asked Elly, PAN archivist, if she knew if the 1964 re-do was used but she only has a record for the 1959 and 1960 printings which both use the same Helweg artwork although it does say new cover.

I have a stack of later PANs which I will add to the site when I feel like it. This week pick is ‘Thy Neighbour’s Wife’ by Gaetano ‘Gay’ Talese (07/02/1932) He is an American writer who worked as a journalist for The New York Times and Esquire magazine during the 1960s. and wrote 14 novels of which ‘Thy Neighbour’s Wife’ with cover artwork by Peter Collins is the only one published by PAN. Peter Collins ARCAS (1923 to 2001)  studied at the Royal College of Art, winning a scholarship. Leaving in 1950 he then worked as a commercial artist producing some well-known posters for clients including British Railways and British European Airways. He was the Art Director at Odhams Press and spent time designing for both ICI and Shell.

I recently hear from Shirley N. who emailed to say ‘Dianne Doubtfire was my father’s first cousin, the daughter of my grandfather’s younger brother. My father was born in 1917 and she was older than him, born 1915 (?) in Leeds as were her father and his two brothers. I can remember her from my childhood when she lived in Chessington, Surrey. Her maiden name was Abrams like mine. Her father was killed in WWI around the time of her birth. She was born in Leeds like her father and my grandfather. I don’t know if she ever moved to Harrogate to be nearer her school. My father knew her best socially when she was a student in Central London in the mid-1930s and, as he was there starting out as a civil servant, she invited him to various parties. She took the first name Dianne when she left home, as she disliked the name Joan. Doubtfire was the name of her husband, Stanley, who became a well-known engraver of bank notes and stamps. He designed the Churchill memorial stamp to mark Winston Churchill’s death in 1965. They had a son called Ashley who died in the 1980s. In the mid-1950s they had moved to Karachi when her husband was working on the new Pakistan currency. My immediate family lost touch at this point, though I know my father’s elder sister corresponded with her for some further years, as had my grandmother, who owned several of her books. I currently own a large drawing she made of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, which was given as a wedding present to my parents. I have also collected several of her novels in my retirement. The early ones, esp. “Lust for Innocence”, give a vivid picture of a lost world, London in the 1950s and 60s, which I remember from my childhood and teenage years” The reason there is a question mark is the mystery over when she was actually born. I had her down as 18th October 1918 from Ancestry in both birth and death registers but Shirley is positive she was older than her father born in 1917. PAN published her books ‘Lust for Innocence’, ‘ Reason for Violence’,  ‘Kick a Tin Can’ and ‘The Flesh is Strong’ She also wrote books for the Topliner series, about collecting stamps and creative writing you can see HERE, 

As I’ve often said I am a sad completest and after hunting high and low I thought I had got all the Piccolo/Piper versions of the ‘Jeremy James’ books by David Henry Wilson and then like buses, two more come along. They are ‘How To Stop A Train With One Finger’ from 1991 and ‘Please Keep Off The Dinosaur’ from 1994 both with covers by Ann Johns, of whom I can find nothing! Can anyone help with information on her or of any other cover variants I may have missed? I will add they have proved very popular with William, my six year old grandson.

I’ve been watching the artwork for ‘Angelique and the Sultan’ on eBay for while as it keeps getting relisted. It is in Germany and the asking price was 4,500 euros which I thought seemed a little steep and it appears so did everyone else but on the latest relisting it’s now 2,500 euros. I noticed on the page they actually have a screen grab from my site showing this book cover and also the Johnson artwork I have namely ‘Poisoned Paradise’ which if I remember correctly was about £15 as whoever sold it couldn’t read the signature.