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

C. S. Forester, Digitising Negatives and ‘I Was Cicero’

I recently featured several ‘Hornblower’ titles by C. S. Forester so I thought I’d put a few more of the later ones on a page HERE. I’m not sure why PAN felt the need to change the covers so often but I’m happy as it makes the search for them more interesting.


After struggling to see what was on the several hundred negatives Kathy Ford kindly gave me by holding them up to the light I bit the bullet and bought a negative/slide digitiser. It was not the cheapest of items but as the negatives were in 120 format with sizes from 6×6 to 6×9 there wasn’t too much choice. It will also mean it will be a lot easier to digitize all the hundreds of 35mm slides we took in the 70’s when you had a family get together in the dark to subject them to what seemed like a never end show. The negative shown is of Kitty Peffer in a pose but for what cover? She is facing forward but on the cover backwards but same dress, gun and stance. Click on the photo for the answer.

Funnily enough the second strip of negatives I picked up to use with the digitiser proved to be of a cover of a book I already had but not identified previously from the negative. Although not PAN it still gets a place in the collection!


I recently got a email from Jules Burt asking if I had spotted that ‘I Was Cicero’ by Elyesa Bazna has two versions, one fat and one thin? I had to say I hadn’t only having one but as soon as it was pointed out I managed to get a copy of the one I didn’t have. I don’t know if one is rarer than the other as both seem to be readily available from sellers.

The covers back and front are the same as are the printing details but one has 192 pages, the other 176 plus the fat one has the photographs interspersed amongst the pages while the other has them all together in the middle.