In 1937 W D and H O Wills produced a set of 40 cards featuring ‘Famous British Authors’ They were included with the 20’s pack of cigarettes as they were too big to go in the 10s. What I was impressed by was the number of authors that can be found to have works published by PAN. Maybe I need to add links to them, well maybe one day. I was intrigued to see the National Portrait Gallery included them in their collection and will sell you prints at various sizes and prices plus greeting cards and a license. You can buy a set for under £5 then it’s easy enough to produce your own and as there is no artist credited I presume they are out of copyright?
One of the Wills cards, specifically number 39, prompted me to rescan all the PAN book covers of titles by Sir P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse. They are 107 ‘Summer Lightning’, ‘112 ‘Thank You Jeeves’ and six later titles with cover artwork by Edward Mortelmans from1968. Wodehouse was born in Guildford on 15/10/1881 and died in New York on 14/02/1975 just a month after he was knighted. He wrote 71 novels and 42 plays plus numerous short stories.
Just to complete the trio of Wodehouse connections this week I picked up a later copy of X709 ‘Nuts in May’ by Richard Gordon. The earlier edition has a quote from Wodehouse on the front cover. I am puzzled as to who gave away the 1973 edition as although it mentions PAN inside it says on the cover it was a TOTAL special edition. Now is that TOTAL the magazine, the toothpaste, the fuel company or something else completely?