Someone posted on Facebook a very small black and white screen shot of Richard Burton reading a PAN book in the film ‘Villain’ You could just about make out it was a first edition of ‘The Diamond Smugglers’ by Ian Fleming but I have managed to get a better one in colour. Both the 1960 and 1962 editions have covers by David Tayler. Another addition to the ‘PAN as seen in films’ page.

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Something else that was posted on Facebook was a cover for ‘The Living Daylights’ mocked up to look like a PAN cover. I’ve tried to read the ‘number’ but failed so far. There are many sites showing pastiche PAN Bond covers which I did start listing but have now given up.

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Not quite sure why but I can’t resist a Papersculpture book of which PAN published two, both by  Goldley and Creme, who were also a rock duo around the end of the 1970s..These titles are often priced high with a couple of ‘The Railway Children’ on eBay for £63 and £57. They’ve been there a while so that might be a reflection on the price, I can’t find another copy of ‘Cromwell’ currently available so to get my latest for £4.99 was a bargain. I seem to have 15 of the one and 6 of the other, maybe time to reign in this obsession and leave a few for someone else.

Having a checklist of books can be a welcome addition for any collector although they are not always complete. While sorting through boxes I found one I had forgot I had got. I think most serious collectors know of the Richard Williams list from Dragonby Press of which there were 200 first editions and 300 second (still a couple for sale from Dragonby on AbeBooks) The one I found published by Dave Gregory predates these of which there were 15 first editions and 20 second. It is useful in that it does list many variants, some of which I still need to find, but doesn’t list all the dustjackets for titles such as PAN 68 ‘Late and Soon’ of which the one I have is the only one I’ve ever come across. I’m also grateful to Rog Peyton for the checklist he has complied of PAN covers artists up to the arrival of ISBNs.

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I came across a page in ‘The Bookseller’ which was published shortly after Alan Bott’s death. It is dated 27th September 1952, just ten days after he died, and has a couple of tributes to him. I wish I could find details of the memorial service to Alan which was held at St. Martins-in-the-Field parish church. The church is at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Dedicated in honour of Saint Martin of Tours, there has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period. .When its medieval and Jacobean structure was found to be near failure, the present building was constructed in an influential neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–1726. 

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I’m still trying to match up the sketches I got from Hans Helweg’s wife and when I saw ‘Four Wheel Drift’ I thought it was one of his. Hans did several covers for Puffin and when I looked at the title page it didn’t mention the cover artist so I took a chance and bought it. It was only when I got home and compared it to the sketches I could see they were all very similar, particularly with the placing of the cars, but not quite there and having a better look at the book I found it did say the cover was by Dexter Brown. Any more guesses as to a title for the artwork?

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I have a few signed Jack Higgins titles and when “The Eagle Has Landed’ came up in a search on eBay it made me look twice but I don’t think I’ll go for it.

I’ve finished scanning in the last of the 26 ‘Bestsellers of Literature’ I started last week. I’m still trying to find out if there was only one title with a later style of header on the front cover as on ‘Wuthering Heights’? I also found ‘The Lost Books Of Jane Austen’ by Janine Barchas shows a couple of PAN covers while a company in the States will sell you a print of ‘Wuthering Heights’ for just $65 in a frame!

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I picked up an inscribed copy of ‘Shrimps for Tea’ by Josephone Blumenfeld, Alan Bott’s wife’ It is inscribed ‘For a reveared Uncle from his disrespectful niece Josephine July 1930’ which makes it a first edition. The only problem is ‘Who was the uncle?’ I though of her Father, Ralph David Blumenfeld, who had one brother, Maximillian. Josephine’s Mother, Theresa Salie, had two brothers whom I thought would be uncles but my wife reminded me that sister’s husbands could also be uncles which means another four possibilities. The brothers were Joseph and Siegfried while the sisters were Jane, husband William, Frieda, husband John, Blanche, husband Henry and Veronika, husband unknown,

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I’m now taking random books of the shelves to rescan and the latest couple are GP18 ‘Cases in Court’ by Sir Patrick Hastings with editions published in 1953, 1954 and 1955. They all appear to have the same front and back cover apart from the title on the 1953 edition which is on a blue background while the others are on a yellow background. Around this time there are quite a few variations of colour for the title background, a bit like the logo on the spine. Patrick Gardiner Hastings  was born 17/03/1880 in London and died 26/02/1952 also in London.

A long time ago I made a page of the titles in the ‘Bestsellers of Literature’ series but the images were very small. I am currently rectify this by rescanning front and rear covers and is a work in progress. Most of the titles follow the same design of cover apart from ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Moll Flanders’ which are listed as in the series but were published before the cover style was launched in July 1967. The majority of the covers from 1967 onwards are by John Raynes, with four by Pat Owen, and I got John to sign a few copies for me but unfortunately I put them away before the ink was properly dry! Interestingly ‘Moll Flanders’ was misnumber in the third printing as X438 and not X433. X438 is ‘A Prince for Inspector West’

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I always like to pick up proof copies of PAN titles and this time it was for ‘The Battle of Britain’ by Leonard Mosley published in 1969 as ‘The making of the film’ to coincide with the release of the film of the same year.

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I spotted what I would call ‘a couple of oddities’ on eBay. The first was for a hardback reworking of the 1955 edition of ‘Casino Royale’. It looks like it was done from scratch and not just a paperback edition converted. It sold for £73 while the other is still on sale at £134 and is for two bespoke cases for ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Moonraker’. As the seller hastens to add ‘the books are NOT included’