A while back I mentioned I have a couple of hundred French S/F titles in the ‘Anticipation’ series by the Paris based publisher Fleuve Noir (Black River). The first ones were because they used the same artwork as PAN titles of which, up to now, I have found eight and which I’ve called Recycled Artwork. I’m sure there must be more as there were 2,001 titles in the series and apparently, unlike PAN, there were no omissions or duplications of numbers but there were a couple with the same title but with different numbers published between 1951 and 1969. Authors went into the publishers Paris offices where a lot of the artwork was kept and just chose what they though would sell their book regardless of what it actually showed. Fleuve Noir acquired at lot of artwork from two agencies, namely ‘Young Artist’ and ‘Sarah Brown’

YOUNG ARTISTS AGENCY
The “Young Artists Agency” (founded in London in 1968 and now known as Arena Artists Management) supplied science fiction artwork to the French publisher Fleuve Noir during the 1970s and 1980s. Founded by John Spencer, the agency flourished under Alison Eldred and launched the careers of many legendary artists of sci-fi art, including Jim Burns, Peter Elson, Angus McKie, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes, Ian Miller and Colin Hay. The artwork provided by the agency was visually groundbreaking.

SARAH BROWN AGENCY
Carol Butfoy founded and ran the “Sarah Brown Agency” along with artist Peter Elson and specialised in representing iconic science fiction and fantasy artists whose work defined the book covers of the 1970s and 1980s. The name “Sarah Brown Agency” was entirely fictional, “Sarah” because it was a name Elson liked, and paired it with “Brown” because they felt it sounded highly professional and reliable. They focused heavily on airbrush art, spaceship designs, and high-concept fantasy imagery used primarily for paperbacks and novels.

FLEUVE NOIR PUBLISHERS
Founded in 1949 by Armand de Caro, Fleuve Noir is a major French publishing house that revolutionised the European popular literature market. It encouraged reading in post-war France by producing affordable, pocket-sized genre fiction, specifically targeting crime, spy thrillers, horror and science fiction. It later became part of Editis, a French group of publishing companies, a subsidiary of Czech Media Invest. It is the second-largest French publishing group, after Hachette Livre. Well known publications from them include L’OSS 117 by Jean Bruce, a French James Bond and the German space series of Perry Rhodan.

Regarding the PAN covers that were reused for the French titles I have spoken to Ian Miller, Les Edwards, Terry Oakes and Peter Gudynas about their experience and they all said they were happy as they did get paid. Still waiting to hear back from Angus McKie and Nancy Petley-Jones but I’m told Angus doesn’t talk about his work these days.

I have about 140 on the web page with probably the same again to add to it and a few get done every now and again so keep checking in.

UPDATE Thanks to Rog Peyton sending me more covers for my Recycled Artwork page I’ve decided that I’ll not just feature PANs as originally intended but now also included artwork form other publishers so happy to hear of any more.

With just two identifiable David Tayler roughs for PAN to go, this week we have G141 ‘The Reluctant Legionnaire’ by Michael Alexander. Michael Charles Alexander was born in London (20/11/1920 to 19/12/2004) the son of Rear-Admiral Charles Otway Alexander and the Dutch patrician Antonia van Geermans, making him half English and half Dutch. He was educated at Stowe and then Sandhurst. He distinguished himself during the Second World War but was captured behind enemy lines and sent to Colditz Castle. After the war Alexander pursued a varied career in publishing and business and authored several notable works including GP46 ‘The Privileged Nightmare’ jointly with Giles Romilly.

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To tie in with the launch of the film of Mario Puzo’s book ‘The Godfather’ in 1970 PAN informed book sellers all about what display materials were available. This is a page from ‘The Bookseller’ magazine

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Ralph Holmes Vernon Hunt was the nephew of Alan Bott and joined Pan Books as Sales Director, working his way up to Managing Director in 1969. He had previously worked at Hudson’s book shop in Birmingham and I had an email from blog reader Alun who worked there from 1973 to 1985 and remembers Vernon Hunt and said he was a nice chap. What always amuses me though is that Vernon Hunt was used as the model for James Bond and John Hadfield referred to him as a ‘virile adventurer of the book trade’ as in this letter! John Charles Heywood Hadfield (16/06/1907 to 10/10/1999) was an English writer and publisher, best known for his 1959 comic novel ‘Love on a Branch Line’

Looking at him in the photo below, third from left, I can’t really see it myself.

This week we have two roughs by David Tayler neither of which look like the finished cover for M33 ‘Annie’s Captain’ by Kathryn Hulme. PAN also published G302 ‘The Wild Place’ and G291 ‘The Nun’s Story’ by Hulme. ‘The Nun’s Story’ was made into a film in 1959 starring Audrey Hepburn and was the inspiration for the early PAN editions cover artwork by Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer. Kathryn Cavarly Hulme (6/1/1900 60 25/8/1981) was an American novelist and memoirist.

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While looking at my C S Forester covers I’m left wondering why PAN felt the need to change the one for ‘Plain Murder’ just a few years apart. As far as I can tell it wasn’t because there was going to be a complete relaunch of Forester titles with a new look as there seems to be only a couple and not really amongst my favourites. I think, if I had to chose, I prefer the earlier ‘Plain Murder’ from 1970

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I’m often asked about the eclectic numbering system for PAN books and I explain, as I will now, it is all down to price as in this table I made. If anyone knows of any I missed please send me a message. If you are a completest then you need to watch our for examples as in the above which are identical apart from the 4th printing went up 6 pence from the 3rd. Just a letter on the spine was kept to show price when PAN switched to SBNs but dropped with the introduction of ISBNs.

This weeks David Tayler rough is for G168 ‘Zoo Quest to Guiana’ by David Attenborough. I was going to include this in the week of his 100th birthday but somehow it got missed. The rough is not that different from the finished cover apart from the background but interestingly the original artwork and printers proof differs from the final cover in not having the yellow flash.

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After featuring Jooce Garrett last week he sent me a photo of Brian Sanders which he thought might have been used for the cover of ‘Dealer’s Move’ I sent it to Brian and he emailed back to say “Gosh I don’t even remember modelling for that.  I Certainly don’t have the original and am sure that Lizzie would not have allowed me to keep it had it been given to me. Did any of the Krays ever have moustache’s? I look more like a cross between Hitler and Stalin than one of the lads. The things we used to do for friends!” It’s possible that PAN didn’t actually publish a copy of this book although Macmillan did.

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Having mentioned ‘Page and Screen’ by John Mabey I was looking through and picking out PAN editions to check against my copies. It was when I got to the TV tie-in for ‘Wings’ by Barry Thomas I noticed something I hadn’t previously. There were two titles and I had just put them side by side on the shell without noticing only one was published by PAN! The other was published by the BBC, the dilemma is now do I leave it there, probably not.