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

Later Tey Covers, ‘Inside Number 9’ Postcards and ‘Rules’ Update.


Elizabeth MacKintosh (Born Inverness 25/07/1896 Died London 13/02/1952) who wrote under the name Josephine Tey had several titles published by PAN. She is probably best known for her Inspector Alan Grant series of which there were six but only four published by PAN. I thought the five titles published in 1973 in the same style would be five of these but no, one features Miss Pym. I’ve also included the 1972 edition of ‘Brat Farrar’ which is not in the same style! Still wondering why one never read edition of ‘A Shilling for Candles’ has the red edges?


I recently noticed some pastiche covers for ‘Inside Number 9’ by a fan of the series and also of the PAN Horror covers. The artist is Sean Coleman and he has combined both interests in a set of six postcards. They are available to buy and I’ve added them to a page HERE plus several other examples he has done previously. They can be bought via Sean’s site at Coleman Design


Having mentioned previously the book ‘You Can’t Play to Win if You Don’t Know the Rules’ in the 1986 highlights brochure which didn’t seem to exist I contacted PAN.  Almost by return I got not one but two explanations thanks to Alysoun and Chloe. Chloe says “From what I can tell the originally suggested title was “You Can’t Play to Win if You Don’t Know the Rules”; we have a contract for the same book where it is called “Fast Forward: A Survivor’s Guide to Corporate Politics”; but the name it was eventually published under was “The Po-Po Principle: A Survival Guide to Office Politics” I’ve not found a copy of ‘Fast Forward” but I have of The Po-Po Princple’ Not an inspiring cover!


Finally, just a quick note to say I’ve heard from Chris Hughes who is selling off his collection of titles mainly just with numbers, so the first 400 or so. If you have any wants, he is happy to be emailed at chris.hughes20@gmail.com

Jakow Trachtenberg, Glassine and ‘With Compliments’

Every now and again I get out a copy of the ‘Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics’ which seems quite straight forward with the book in front of me but trying to use it in everyday life is a different story. I though there were only two PAN editions, but I have just come across a third which I’ve added to the page.


I have had a couple of people ask about the cover of the hardback edition of ‘The Dam Busters’ produced after selling a million copies in paperback. In Jules ‘Rarities’ video I mentioned a glassine wrapper which seem to be new to some so here is a description.


I have a couple of ‘With Compliments’ slips from the 50s but Ray sent me photo of one he’d found in a book which had been typed on. It looks like it could be for review copies of 2 titles but they were published 3 years apart? The titles are The Angry Mountain’ and Death and the Sky Above’ I noticed the address is the same but the telephone number has changed, anyone any idea when this might have been?

More ’86 Highlights, Wilbur Smith and Kevin Tweddell

This week I’m including three pages from the1986 Forthcoming Titles’ book I picked up recently. There are several more which I will use in future blogs now and again.

The three Picador titles are relatively easy to find as is the PAN ‘Staying OK’ although the edition shown is a hardback version by other publishers as are ‘Shah of Shahs’ and ‘The Engineer of Human Souls’ while ‘You Can’t Play To Win If You Don’t Know The Rules’ doesn’t appear to exist apart from on this page! I have looked through all the online catalogues, from sellers and titles listed as by Christopher Andersen but nothing has popped up. Has anyone seen a copy not just by PAN but by any publisher? The only title with a cover that was shown and used was ‘White Noise’


I’ve added the above page and a printer’s proof to Wilbur’s page HERE, It is interesting to see the ‘Golden PAN Award’ featured there as Wilbur collected 22. It’s not possible to see if the one used was one of his or for another author.


The third page is for ‘Cry Once Alone’ by E V Thompson with artwork by Kevin Tweddell. I’ve included the page and a copy of the printer’s proof on Kevin’s page HERE which happens to show ‘The Burning Shore’ as it was also by Kevin.

RIP Angela Lansbury

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE (16/19/1925 – 11/10/2022) was born in London and was actress and singer who played various roles across film, stage, and television. Most people would probably think of the TV series ‘Murder, She Wrote’ but what I thought of ‘was ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ for which she received a third Oscar nomination. The PAN 1962 edition of this novel by Richard Condon is a film tie-in but all references to this have disappeared from the 1967 edition with cover by Richard Chopping.

Jules Next Video, 1986 Forthcoming Titles and Gail Godwin

I’m really pleased to say HERE is the link to video 2 of 4 from Jules which he filmed while visiting for a couple of days at the beginning of September. This time it looks at a few items of interest especially to James Bond fans. The others will be available soon.


Having mentioned the ‘Forthcoming Titles’ brochure from 1986 I thought I’d show the whole thing plus some of the printers’ proofs loose inside. Click on the image above to see it. I’ll be looking at the contents over the next couple of weks.


One of the titles featured in the above brochure wasThe Finishing School’ by Gail Kathleen Godwin (born Birmingham, Alabama June 18th, 1937) with a cover I’ve not been able to find, anyone got a copy? I think PAN published seven of her seventeen novels with three as PAN and four as Pavanne. Click HERE to see them.

A Jackie Collins ‘Golden PAN Award’ Trilogy

This week it’s just one topic but covering three titles from Jackie Collins (4 October 1937 – 19 September 2015) that all won ‘Golden PAN Awards’ Jackie was one of the world’s top-selling novelists with more than 500 million copies of her books sold in more than 40 countries. Looking along the shelves I can’t believe I’m a couple of editions short but those online tend to be from major sellers using stock images so who knows what I might get?

  • LUCKY for which Jackie Collins earned a ‘Golden PAN Award’ by selling a million copies in PAN alone. Unfortunately, she never received it during her lifetime. When PAN wanted to resurrect the awards in 2017 they were not sure they could until they found her statue to use as a model for all the ones since then. This is book 2 in the ‘Lucky Santangelo’ series.
  • HOLLYWOOD WIVES sold over a million copies in PAN alone. There were several other novels in this series with ‘Hollywood in the title including HOLLYWOOD HUSBANDS (1986), HOLLYWOOD KIDS (1994), HOLLYWOOD WIVES: THE NEW GENERATION (2001), and HOLLYWOOD DIVORCES (2003). With more than 15 million copies sold worldwide HOLLYWOOD WIVES was her ninth and most successful novel,
  • CHANCES for which Jackie was awarded a Golden PAN Award but I can’t find a photo of her with it. Is anyone out there able to help?  This is book 1 in the ‘Lucky Santangelo’ series.

Apparently, according to this newspaper clip she was not impressed with the statue’s attributes!

On her death Jeremy Trevathan, Publisher at Pan Macmillan remembered her thus “Jackie Collins was originally published by Collins in hardback in the 1970s and 80s and Sonny Mehta, then publisher at Pan Books, acquired her for the Pan paperback imprint. She was one of the authors that helped Pan become synonymous with commercial brand author publishing. She moved to be published by Macmillan in hardcover and Pan in paperback in the late 80s or early 90s. And finally, she moved her publishing to Simon & Schuster 15 years ago, though we continued to publish her backlist until 2011. I worked with her directly for some eleven years, on her backlist. She was an extraordinary woman who oozed glamour and glitz and who epitomised what many people believe to be the dazzling, blockbuster author’s lifestyle. She was the female Harold Robbins, without the chaos. The whole enterprise was underpinned by a steely knowledge of her market and her readership and a complete openness of heart and mind to anyone. She held firm views about her book jacket artwork and her marketing, but she worked like a dog to make it all happen, and I admired her massively for that. Every meeting with her was like a scene from one of her novels! It feels like the 1980s have died . . . ”