I’m still trying to track down the numbered copies of ‘Extracts from a Diary’ by Hugh Walpole of which there were 100. I have number 3 which was given to PAN founder Alan Bott and up to last week I had managed to track down 29 but on doing a recent search found another 2 or possibly 3. Number 57 was sold in November on eBay while 27 was shown on a Reditt page by a poster who said they had two copies including Hugh Walpole’s own. There was a copy of Walpole’s ‘The Crystal Box’ on eBay up to Christmas for only £1,105. I might consider selling my copy for a knock down price of only £999.99 if anyone is interested?
I’m currently reading ‘Hugh Walpole’ by Rupert Hart Davis and there are several references to Alan Bott, founder of PAN Books and his wife Josephine.
This weeks random author is Elmore John Leonard Jr. (11/10/1925 to 20/08/2013) an American novelist, short story author and screenwriter. His early novels from the1950s were mainly Westerns but he went on write crime fiction and suspense thrillers several of which have been adapted into films. Leonard wrote 64 novels of which PAN only published two that I have found. ‘Unknown Man No 89’ is a very common title but ’52 Pick-Up’ is more elusive. On the front of ‘Unknow Man No 89’ it states that it will be coming soon as an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, his 54th, but Hitchcock died before it could come to the silver screen.