Fellow PAN Fan Jeremy Birch sent me an envelope he found in his M207 copy of ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ It contains several black and white photos of scenes around Dorchester and annotated on the back with the references to passages in the book. Jeremy is happy to give them to the Hardy Society and as he doesn’t use email he asked me. I contacted them and by return I got a message to say could they  would be very interested so I have sent them on. I have put a couple of examples on the M207 page.

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Having mentioned the PAN logo being in different coloured rectangles last week made me take another look and I was really surprised to see how many variants there were on the spines in the earlier editions before they settled down to using yellow.

These are just a few of the more distinct colours as some may be faded and there are even more on the dust jackets with one being a pink logo in a green box.

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Sorting out Dick Francis titles I found I had three editions of ‘The Sport of Queens’ and laying them in a row I think the covers got progressively worse as the price increased from 70p to £4.99. Richard Stanley Francis (31/010/1920 – 14/02/2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer whose novels centre on horse racing in England. More than forty of these novels became international best-sellers.

Whilst hobbling around Whitby with the family last week I finished reading ‘On The House’ by Simon Hogggart which I enjoyed. With it being from 1982 I had actually heard of a lot of the MPs and could bring faces to mind, something I don’t think I can say for MPs now. There was one piece that reminded me of a holiday we had in South Africa (see scan above) It was a package tour and it was only halfway through we found out who David and Gillian were. Turns out they were Lord and Lady Waddington (the red trousers should have been a clue). He held many roles including Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher and had visited South Africa many times but not as a real tourist. Apparently, unbeknown to us, we had all been vetted and he had to ‘report in’ every night but it also meant we got a few extra meals and excursions thrown in for nothing, Mind you he did fly first class, something not extended to the rest of us. I’ve picked up a few more of Hoggart’s titles to go on the ‘to read’ pile although only one is another PAN.

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For those completest amongst us you have to be careful with PAN 175 ‘Forlorn River’ by Zane Grey. There are at least two printings, a first from 1951 and a reprint from 1953 with identical covers apart from a couple of things. There is message about writing to PAN for news on the back of the 1951 edition. and more interestingly, the PAN logo on the spine is in the usual yellow box on the 1953 edition but in red on the 1951. The original artwork by John Pollack appears to be in a completely different colour scheme.

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I have several sets of Douglas Adam’s ‘The Hitchhikers’s Guide To The Galaxy’ but I will confess I’d not really looked at the covers of some of the later ones so I decided to remedy that. When I pulled out the 2016 edition of ‘The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe’ I couldn’t believe how bad it was, even if it is supposed to look like a menu cover, compared to the other four but that might be just me, I’ve scanned them all in just because I have them.

This week I am looking at three Paul Gallico titles published more than once by PAN. The first is ‘The Poseidon Affair’ from 1971 and as a film tie-in in1973 plus I’ve thrown in ‘Beyond the Poseidon Adventure’ from 1979

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‘Matilda’ was published in 1972 and again as a film tie-in in 1978.  I never found the first edition particularly attractive but somehow PAN managed to make the later even more unappealing. Alright, the kangaroo is sort of cute, but the box with the names of stars of the film doesn’t really do anything for it in my opinion and I’m not sure about the choice of font, moan over,

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The third Gallico title is ‘The Zoo Gang’ of which both my editions are from 1973 but one is a second printing and features a cover from the ATV television series of which I have no memory even though it claimed to be an “exciting series” with “action all the way” to quote the blurbs.

While trying to find a ‘free’ version of the ‘The Railway Children’ to show the grandchildren as they had visited the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway last week, where it was filmed, I came across the trailer. I was surprised to see it featured the PAN edition of the book in a strange kaleidoscopic swirl which I’ve added to a couple of pages. (You can watch it for free on Dailymotion)

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While reading ‘The Electric Cotillion’ by Don Asher from 1972, one of the two of his books published by PAN, I keep looking at the cover trying to decipher the signature. Can anyone recognise it? The other book by Asher is ‘The Piano Sport’ from 1970

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I bought a Picador copy of ‘Kristin Lavransdatter’ by Sigrid Undset because I liked the cover, Sigrid Undset (20/05/1882 – 10/06/1949) was a Danish-born Norwegian novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. This is a compilation of her trilogy comprising ‘Kransen’, ‘Hisfrue’ and ‘Korset’ The cover is by Geoff Taylor whom I have communicated with in the past and at one time lived about 2 miles from me although we didn’t know that at the time. If you want to read it be warned you need strong wrists as this is a book of nearly 1,000 pages!