This weeks David Taylor roughs are for ‘The Gun’ by C S Forester’ There are four of them with one being very close to the finished cover which was used on at least seven PAN editions plus another by Simon Publishing. Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27/08/1899 to 02/04/1966) was an English novelist probably best known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the twelve book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars of which PAN published four titles. Forester was born in Cairo and died in California but with a blue plaque in Dulwich!
Last week I asked for guesses as to what a couple of David Tayler roughs might be for. After a few suggestions I think Alan Lewis and colleague win as I’m now 99.9% sure it was an unused idea for ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ by Christopher Landon. He suggested the second drawing was definitely a scene from the film and after looking at it I agree. I’ve added a still from the film to the page for G200 as back up to the suggestion. PAN published it twice with the first edition having a cover by Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer but I’m not sure of the later one.
Now having got the last missing title people say ‘What next?’ Well apart from later PANs, catalogues, artwork, advertising and display material I do occasionally dabble in others publishers offerings. I recently featured the complete Agatha Christie ‘foxtail’ titles from Fontana with cover artwork by Martin Baker and now I’m including what was listed as ‘The Corgi SF Collectors Library’ plus a few earlier titles with covers I like. Maybe a page of ‘Anticipation’ covers from Fleuve Noir might be coming up.