While making one of my visits to PizGloria to see what’s new I was interested in a link Bazeer had put to a YouTube video by Gary Sassaman. It was number 28 in his series ‘Tales From My Spinner Rack’ and this time it was looking at James Bond paperbacks. I was pleased to see PAN titles were prominently displayed. Bazeer mentions it in on his website as he gets a thanks and a plug at the end.

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This weeks random author is Nicholas Blake, the pseudonym of poet Cecil Day-Lewis. PAN published five of his novels in the first ten years of PAN specifically PAN 99 ‘A Question of Proof‘, PAN 111 ‘There’s Trouble Brewing‘, PAN 237 ‘Minute for Murder‘, PAN 308 ‘Head of a Traveller‘ and PAN G282 ‘The Whisper in the Gloom‘ and then there seems to have been a lull until 1971/2 when they published four more titles with rather unimpressive covers, well that’s my opinion. Cecil Day-Lewis (27/04/1904 to 22 /05/1972) was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death. The mystery stories he wrote under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake mostly featured the fictional detective Nigel Strangeways, starting with ‘A Question of Proof’

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….. and it has finally has arrived with a thump on the doorstep, all 448 pages. It seems a long time ago that I contributed to a Kick Starter project for a book on the work of prolific artist Renato Fratini. It is certainly a weighty tome and covers the full range of his work from film poster to magazines etc and a large section on book covers. It was to this I turned first to see which, if any, PAN covers were included. It was a bit sparse but I was pleased to see ‘One Love is Enough’ as I was never sure if this was by Fratini. The book is called ‘The Art of Renato Fratini’ and is by Timothy R Smith.

Having recently been in communication with Jooce Garrett again he has very kindly let me have some of his original artwork. I now have the paintings for ‘Jean Towards Another Day’ and ‘Vipers & Co’ I have added them to his page so you will need to scroll down to see them. There is also the artworld for ‘Dealer’s Move’ but as to whether or not it was ever used by Pan is debatable. I’ve included a couple of reference photos for ‘Vipers & Co’ featuring Christine Isteed and Lizzie Moyes. It was Lizzie that was actually used and is held by John Barker of Artist Partners, while Tiddles is restrained by Jooce’s first wife, Judy.

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Having recently been featuring the PAN artwork by David Tayler I acquired, I have now got around to scanning in all the western artwork that was included in the box as I had a request to ask if I would do so. I know they are not PAN but I think the are interesting in their own right with covers from several publishers mainly from the 1950s. There are five roughs at the end to which I would like to put a title so as usual if any one can help please get in touch.

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We managed to pop over to Baddesley Clinton to visit the book fair which runs to the end of the month. I was a bit disappointed in that there appeared to be just a couple of extra tables by the regular bookshop. So as to not waste our visit there we went for a walk in the gardens around the pool and when coming out at the front of the house what did we spy but several gazebos with many more books and many happy customers. I certainly changed my opinion, it was just we’ve not seen them do this before.

I ended up with just these four at £1 each, all of which I already have, but the top three were in unread condition while ‘Solo’ was in slightly undersized Royal format and was printed in India, this one has a sticker from Prakash Books so looks like it was sold there as well.

I do like to come across PAN books that were not always published in the UK. A case in point is ‘The Rise and Fall of Squizzy Taylor’ originally published by the Jacaranda Press in 1971 and then republished by PAN Books (Australia) Pty. in 1981. The book traces the life of Melbourne’s most flamboyant 1920s gangster, famous for bootlegging, protection rackets, and evading the law before his violent death in a shootout..

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I was sorting books on the shelf, this time the Five Novels from Nova Publishing, who published the ‘New Worlds’ magazine, which made me wonder if there was any connection between four of their five covers and PAN? Nova numbered them as 1, 1, 2, 3, and 4 and it is the later four I asked Chat GP about and the response was ‘Yes’ because of the connection through Gerard Quinn and a slight visual similarity with a yellow rounded rectangle. I’ll leave it to you to agree or disagree,

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I admire the artwork of Gino D’Achille who could turn his hand to so many types of image from ancient history to romance through the ages, science fiction and warfare and HERE are a couple of his covers from the last mentioned genre. There seems to have been only two titles in the ‘Recon’ series although the author wrote several of the ‘Able Team’ books.

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Sorry this is a bit late as I meant to post in a couple of weeks ago but the pop up book shop is back in Wolverhampton at the Community Hub in the Mander Centre until the 15th August, 10:00 until 17:00, then back on the 17th October until the 15th November. Also the Annual Book Fair is on at NT Baddesley Clinton until August 30th from 10:00 to 17:00 every day. I shall be along there this week as I always seem to find an interesting item or two (or even more)

I think this will be the last of the David Tayler PAN roughs for a bit but I am hoping to acquire some more. This time it is for ‘Tramp Royal’ by Michael Bruce. Sir Michael William Selby Bruce, 11th Baronet (27/03/1894 to 02/05/1957) was an author and soldier. He went to Abingdon School and later joined the British South Africa Police as a trooper. After the First World War service with the Royal Artillery at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, Bruce became a traveller, largely in Africa and South America, and an author and newspaper columnist. During the Second World War he served in a barrage balloon unit, with 901 (County of London) squadron, Royal Air Force Regiment. Later in the war he was Senior Weapons Instructor for glider pilots at Bridgnorth. I do have quite a few more Tayler roughs for westerns which weren’t published by PAN. I am being encouraged to put them on the web so they might appear one day.

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Just when you think you have them all up pops a different cover. This one is for the 1973 edition of ‘The Big Story’ by Morris West. This makes it five, I have including three numbered G226 one of which was for the 1965 film tie-in when the title was changed to ‘The Crooked Road’

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A couple of blogs back I included a list of the letters and prices PAN used for their eclectic numbering system pre SBN (Standard Book Number) and then for SBNs on the spine before ISBNs came in. I thought I had listed them all but on taking my 1970 copy of ‘East Of Eden’ by John Steinbeck off the shelf I noticed it was a ‘C’ which made it 8/- or 40p today. Now wondering how many more I might have missed?