In 1937 W D and H O Wills produced a set of 40 cards featuring‘Famous British Authors’They were included with the 20’s pack of cigarettes as they were too big to go in the 10s. What I was impressed by was the number of authors that can be found to have works published by PAN. Maybe I need to add links to them, well maybe one day. I was intrigued to see theNational Portrait Galleryincluded them in their collection and will sell you prints at various sizes and prices plus greeting cards and a license. You can buy a set for under £5 then it’s easy enough to produce your own and as there is no artist credited I presume they are out of copyright?
One of the Wills cards, specifically number 39, prompted me to rescan all the PAN book covers of titles by Sir P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse. They are 107 ‘Summer Lightning’, ‘112 ‘Thank You Jeeves’ and six later titles with cover artwork by Edward Mortelmans from1968. Wodehouse was born in Guildford on 15/10/1881 and died in New York on 14/02/1975 just a month after he was knighted. He wrote 71 novels and 42 plays plus numerous short stories.
Just to complete the trio of Wodehouse connections this week I picked up a later copy of X709 ‘Nuts in May’by Richard Gordon. The earlier edition has a quote from Wodehouse on the front cover. I am puzzled as to who gave away the 1973 edition as although it mentions PAN inside it says on the cover it was a TOTAL special edition. Now is that TOTAL the magazine, the toothpaste, the fuel company or something else completely?
I think I have mentioned it before but Tom Stimpson‘s sister Lesley is organising an exhibition of some of his original work in Westbury starting on the 14th June when it would have been Tom’s 70th birthday.
Why not visit Maurice at Zardoz Records and Books at Unit 4, Mill Lane, Hawkeridge, Westbury, BA134LD while you are there. Thousands of books for just a pound.
As an aside, and just to show I’m not a one trick pony, I am also a ranger for a disused railway line that is being repurposed as a walking/cycling greenway. The first of four sections has been surfaced and an official opening ceremony took place. I was surprised to be asked to cut the ribbon it but this was probably because I have been doing management work on it since the last century. What they didn’t tell me, because of health and safety gone mad, they were kiddies scissors that wouldn’t cut a jelly hence the laughs all round!
I recently picked up a couple of Canadian PAN editions, one with the same cover as the UK but printed in Canada, the other with a different cover also printed in Canada. What was interesting, well I though so, was that they both had green dyed page edges. The books are ‘Hungry as the Sea’ by Wilbur Smith and ‘La Luna’ by George Malko.
Rog Peyton asked me if he could have a scan of the first and second printing of ‘Diary of a Nobody’ by George and Weedon Grossmith, a book from1892 which I still find funny after several readings. While scanning I took the opportunity to scan at a larger size and to recheck the board cover colours. I’m still not sure about one that appears light blue but as it doesn’t have a dust jacket I think it is just a sun faded version of the dark blue one I already have.
‘Let’s Go’were a series of travel guides started in 1960 by the Harvard Student Agency. They developed from a 20 sheet mimeographed pamphlet, put together by 18-year-old freshman Oliver Koppell, into a comprehensive range of 11 titles covering more than 40 countries. It was in 1989 that PAN started publishing them in the UK with St Martins Press doing the same in the US. They ceased publication in 2020 as a result of COVID.
I’m always enjoy watching Jules Burt’s videos even when they are not necessarily connected to PAN but HERE is one that is. He looks at the Great PANs and it’s fascinating to see all the covers amongst which are some I have the artwork for and some of which are real clunkers.
I know there are many books about bookshops, looking at them from many different angles, such as the famous drif’s guide but I’ve just read six by bookshop proprietors. Two are by Jen Campbell and four by Shaun Bythhell. Click HERE to see them. PAN gets a mention in ‘Confessions of a Bookseller’
Shaun runs ‘The Book Shop’ in Wigton and I have been there a couple of times. I’m now trying to track down when we might have visited to see if we recognise ourselves in any of the books. I remember it was just like in the movies when we dropped in, being able to park right outside, but as to what I bought …..?
Always nice to spot a cover in a series or by an author when you thought you had got them all but recently, like buses, not one but three came along. Two were Victor Canning titles, where his name is in a distinctive style, as above, with the titles being ‘Firecrest’ and ‘The Scorpio Letters’ I don’t know why PAN felt the need for another cover for ‘Firecrest’but evidently they did. I don’t know which one came first as they are both 1973. The other was a copy of ‘Smiley’s People’ by John Le Carre but the Canadian edition which has taken so long to arrive I had forgotten all about it. It mentions Canadian TV on the cover and is printed in Canada.
Having mentioned David Graham’s‘Down To A Sunless Sea’recently I found I also had a copy of his novel‘Sidewall’from 1983. Looking on the net there are several sites which show a different cover but all from the ‘stack them high, sell them cheap’ sites so I’m wondering if this cover actually exists as they all list it as a stock photo? I’d really like to know if it lists the cover artist as the style looks familiar.
Just a reminder that the ‘Vintage Paperback and Pulp Book Fair’ is on in London next Sunday. Unfortunately I can’t make it I but will look forward to seeing the highlights in Jules Burt’s video.
While looking atJohn Atkinson’s siteI spotted what I thought was a photo of the spines of PAN Bond books. On closer inspection I found they were not a photo but painted by Roo Waterhouse who specialises in‘Shelf Portraits’Roo has also done one of mainly PAN Agatha Chrsitie spines and another featuring a few PAN S F titles. Some images are available as prints, tote bags, cards and mugs and to see more clickHERE. I pleased to say I now have one of her prints hanging on my wall. If you do feel like buying something don’t forget to mention you saw the link on my site.
Several years ago I picked up a bundle of original artworks by William Francis Phillips including one for a Penguin title and a few for New English Library titles but a couple remained a mystery, well that was up to now. I was casually looking at images of book covers and was delighted to see one I recognised. It was for ‘Summer of the Red Wolf’by Morris West from NEL so that leaves one more on the unknow covers list from this batch, click HERE to see it. (Sorry the covers for Edge and Steele are poor but can’t find mine and these are off the net)
There has been a couple of items relating to ‘The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy’on eBay recently which made me have a second look but then decided that they may be worth the asking price to someone but I couldn’t bring myself to pay that much. One was for an original ‘Don’t Panic’ towel from PAN with an asking price of £220 while the poster was on offer for £52.
I have been going through newspaper archives looking for articles relating to PAN Books and I have found a few. The first couple relate to the arrival of PAN Books with the announcement of the thinking behind them and forthcoming titles. I have plenty more to use in future blogs.
The next clipping refers to problems with titles being delayed.
Some titles from 1951.
I’d love to get my hands on one of these from 1955.
Last one for this week the opening of the West Molesey despatch centre by Alan Bott’s wife, Josephine. Also there was Ralph Vernon-Hunt who was later to become the face of James Bond on the 1960’s book covers.
It was back in 2016 that I first made contact with Rog Peyton and in spite of numerous emails since, usually letting me know I had made a ‘typing’ error, we’ve only recently got together. Rog had got a couple of advertising boards for book signings by Peter F. Hamilton and was I interested? Although they were for titles a little later than my usual cut off date I said “Yes” and so we met up at Rog’s house. We both agreed it was good to be able to talk about books as so many others tend to switch of when they become the subject of a conversation. Wikipedia states, rightly or wrongly; Roger “Rog” Peyton (born 1942) is an English science fiction fan, bookseller, editor and publisher from Birmingham. Peyton has been an active member of science fiction fandom since 1961, when he co-founded the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. From 1964 to 1966, he served as editor for the British Science Fiction Association’s critical magazine Vector. He also started the British Science Fiction Association’s fiction magazine Tangent. He began a long tradition of working on science fiction convention organizing committees with work for Brumcon 2, the 1965 Eastercon. Since then he has attended over 150 science fiction conventions including being one of only six (The Magnificent Six) who have attended all 45 Novacons and in 1979 won the Doc Weir Award for his services to fandom.
In 1971 Peyton and business partner Rod Milner launched a part-time bookselling business, Andromeda Book Company, in Old Hill, a few miles outside of Birmingham. Moving into the city centre to Suffolk Street in 1973, Peyton gave up his job in the building industry to sell books full-time, which was to last until 2002 when the businesLs went into voluntary liquidation. Following the demise of Andromeda, Peyton went solo selling on the internet as Replay Books. During the Andromeda years, their ventures included co-editing the Venture SF series of reprints of classic adventure science fiction from Arrow Books (1985–1989). Peyton and Milner also ran the small press Drunken Dragon Press, which published four titles amongst which was the 1988 collection of parodies ‘The Dragonhiker’s Guide to Battlefield Covenant at Dune’s Edge: Odyssey Two’ by David Langford. Rog also very kindly gave me a copy of ‘The Time-Lapsed Man’ which is a 1990 hardback reprint by his Drunken Dragon Press of a title by Eric Brown and originally published by PAN in 1989. These days Rog spends part of his time compiling list of book cover artists for different publishers including PAN and also walking his dog, Nellie. PS Did you recognise Terry Pratchett and Neil Gamain in the photo?
Adrian Harrington, booksellers of Tunbridge Wells, is well know for selling James Bond related material, often with a John Gilbert connection. I myself have bought items from them not only from Tunbridge Wells but also when the shop was in Kensington. I was just looking what they currently have in stock and was interested to see an item, namely four DIY volumes of Bond stories and related titles including one with ‘The Book of Bond’ and ‘The Bond Dossier’ and yours for only £650.
Going off at a tangent I recently picked up a couple of later Picadors which are signed limited editions and published in association with Goldsboro Books but I’m not quite sure why. The one is a hard back edition in a slipcase of ‘The Kills’by Richard House and the other is ‘Selection Day’by Aravind Adiga.
In the mid 1960s PAN published and republished all sixteen ‘Jalna’ titles by Mazo de la Roche and for once they were all in the same style although with paintings by different artists. I know four were by Gordon King as he told me and one by John Raynes as I can read the signature but I’m still puzzling over one which seems to have a signature possibly beginning with ‘W’ but that’s about it.
I would love to know the artist for ‘Variable Winds at Jalna’as the original artwork has hung on my wall for years. I’ve included a few later editions, some with SBNs and some with ISBNs including a few that say PAN Toronto London as opposed to just PAN London but all printed in the UK. I have listed them in time sequence of the saga and included the publication dates as well.
Prime recommended I watch ‘Absolutely Anything’ which we did and enjoyed in spite of the reviews. I was pleased to see a name I recognised in the credits, that of a fellow PAN Fan, Gavin Scott, who not only wrote the script with Terry Jones but also appeared in it. Gavin and I have been emailing on and off since 2016 when he contacted me to say “I’m a great fan of your site, which I think is superbly organised and very rich” He, like me, is a admirer of the cover artwork and has a collection of his own. Above is a screen capture of Gavin as a newsreader in the film.
My last ‘New Titles’ list with a picture on the cover features ‘The Master Mariner’ by Nicholas Monsarrat and makes me scratch my head. It clearly states that it will be published on 11th January 1980 so why does my copy, and several from online sellers, say it is 1979?
Quite a while ago I posted about Hugh Walpole’s ‘Extracts From A Diary’which he had printed in lieu of his 50th birthday party as he wasn’t well. They were limited to 100 copies and I have number 3 which came with a letter to Alan Bott, founder of PAN Books. I was speculating on where the others may have ended up and after writing a article for ‘The Hugh Walpole Review’ my list of 23 has expanded to 29 thanks to Rod Boroughs of the Hugh Walpole Society and Peter Henderson of the King’s School Canterbury.
03 Tim Kitchen (Alan Bott) 08 Maugham Library, The King’s School, Canterbury Somerset Maugham’s copy. 09 Library Of Congress 18 University Of Tulsa 25 The King’s School Canterbury from the R T Risk Collection 29 Yale University 37 National Library Of Scotland 40 Huntington Library 41 Sold by Biblio to ? S/C G/J 42 Godfrey Holdstock S/C 44 Stanford University 45 University Of Melbourne 46 Lilly Library 49 UCLA Library 58 Dee MacLean (Jack and Edith Eliot) 65 Alexander Turnbull Library 68 Sold by Harper Field Auctioneers to ? 2018 S/C 71 Simon Dunant 76 Ann Bolam Gifted by Hart-Davies S/C with George Cukor on it 80 Ann Bolam 81 Library of Congress (Jean Hersholt) 84 Boston University 87 University Of Texas 88 Bodleian Library 89 British Library 92 Cambridge University 93 London Library 94 British Library 100 University of York (Ronald Storrs) Gifted by Sir Rupert Hart-Davies
I’ve also included Walpole’s ‘The Crystal Box’ of which I have number131 or 150.
Just by coincidence I spotted a couple of titles linked by the word ‘Fear’, the first being ‘Reign of Fear’with a cover by Ian Miller published as a PAN Horror and the second ‘The Grip of Fear’ with a cover by Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer published by Digit. Sellers of the latter title can ask up to three figures for it but as to whether or not they sell for that I don’t know. What I do know is I got if for a price I was pleasantly surprised by.
This weeks ‘New Titles’ features ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and it is from mid 1975. It also highlights ‘The Rainbird Pattern’ by Victor Canning as “one of our finest and most consistently successful crime writers”
Sorting out David John Moore Cornwell titles I noticed how may variants of his covers there are specifically where the R’s of his penname are squashed together (careful how you say that) David Cornwell was born on the 19th October 1931 in Poole, Dorset and died on the 12th December 2020 in Truro, Cornwall.
This weeks‘New Titles’cover features ‘Down to a Restless Sea’ by David Graham and I think it is the only one of his six titles, written under various names, published by PAN. Graham was the pen name of Evan (or Wilbur) Wright (1919–1994) a British crime fiction author born in South Shields.
I have scanned in the complete catalogue of ‘Piccolo Paperbacks 75’ as mentioned last week. I have not tried to do anything fancy like page turning etc as I have never had that much success in the past so I just put them all on a page.
One of the Wills cards, specifically number 39, prompted me to rescan all the PAN book covers of titles by Sir P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse. They are 107 ‘Summer Lightning’, ‘112 ‘Thank You Jeeves’ and six later titles with cover artwork by Edward Mortelmans from1968. Wodehouse was born in Guildford on 15/10/1881 and died in New York on 14/02/1975 just a month after he was knighted. He wrote 71 novels and 42 plays plus numerous short stories.
