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.
My wife and I were delighted to receive an invitation to join Gordon Young and his wife Chrissie at his surprise birthday party at Barton on Sea last Saturday. Gordon was the ‘ships boy’ on PAN’s boat, the Laloun, back in 1947 when titles were printed in France. If you don’t know Gordon’s story catch up with his biography in part oneHEREand part twoHERE. It was a very good turnout with, we estimate, well over 50 people enjoying the very convivial atmosphere. Here is Gordon reading his congratulations card from King Charles and Queen Camilla. He tells me he has a lot more stories about his time at PAN so keep reading this blog.
After featuring a couple of printer’s proofs last week, here are a couple more. The first one is for ‘Queen of a Distant Country’which I’ve added to a page of later John Braine covers with ISBNs. PAN only published one of his using their eclectic numbering, this being M181 ‘The Jealous God’The second is by Conrad Von Bark titled ‘The Second Red Dragon’ and again I’ve added it to a page of his covers with ISBNs.
I picked up a ‘Piccolo Paperbacks 75’ catalogue from December 1975 which is made more interesting by featuring may illustrations from the books. It also includes a flyer for a competition for under 7s to draw a ghost and 7s to 12s to write a story about a ghost to win a bookshelf full of Piccolo titles. I will scan all of the catalogue for next week’s post.
Thanks to Maurice at Zardoz Books I now have four more printer’s proofs for PAN titles. One of them is for a book I mentioned recently, namely ‘Lovely She Goes’by William Mitford and another for ‘Masquerade at the Wells’by Lorna Hill.
I picked up a copy of ‘The Kappillan of Malta’ from the secondhand bookshop at the NT property of Shughborough Hall. I thought I had already got it but this copy was in better condition. When I went to swap them over I realised they were not the same. They are both 1975 but one is a 1st and one a 2nd printing with a cover by Harry Hants. I’m wondering why PAN felt the need to change it so soon although I prefer the 2nd printing.
Just to prove that Kyle Onstott and Lance Horner didn’t have sole rights to ‘slave’ genre books, here is one by Nancy Cato. ‘Brown Sugar’ was published by PAN in 1977 and although the cover is in the same style as many others I don’t know the artist. The NEL edition, included on the page, has a less salacious cover but I was intrigued by how much of the blurb on the backs is the same.
Georgette Heyer was featured on the front cover of my ‘New Titles’ list for October and November 1979 and is from the later series PAN published around the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. So far I have 40 titles in the same style but very few have a named artist and if anyone knows of others I may have missed please leave a comment or email me.
‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’by Ken Kersey was first published by PAN as a Picador in 1973 with a cover by John Holmes. It was republished in 1975 as a film tie-in and again in 2002 as one of Picador’s Thirty Books. The film tie-in is dated 1973 but the film came out in 1975 so it look like PAN didn’t change the text block.
On the 16th of June 2023 PAN ran a competition to win goodies as listed below. This was to coincide with the publication of ‘The Ghost Ship’ by Kate Mosse. This would normally be well passed my cut off date but I happened to spot the ‘exclusive’ badge for sale for a couple of pounds and couldn’t resist. I am left wondering how few badges were made to make them exclusive?
I picked up a couple of titles by G H Frost featuring his ‘Recon Crew’. It was the cover artwork by Gino d’Achille that attracted me, even my wife said she liked the first one. Apparently Frost was also the author of at least five ‘Able Team’titles.
You can find some weird stuff on line and I was tempted by two sharks, one made from a gold colour metal and one white, featuring a 3D shark. The back shows part of the PAN cover for ‘Jaws’from a later edition going on the tag line ‘It’s never safe to go back in the water’ and the word ‘JAWS’ is in the shark teeth style PAN used devised by Ken Hatherley. Not bad for a penny each. The seller said they are coins minted in 2000 to commemorate the 25th Anniversary?
I have two copies of ‘The Nine Bad Shots of Golf’ with distinctly different coloured covers. I’m wondering if one has been in the sun too long but would the brown turn green or visa versa? They are identical in every other respect.
Good to see the pop up bookshop was back in Wolverhampton where it will be until the end of the month. Unfortunately there was nothing that grabbed my attention even though there were more tables and shelves than last time. There is too much contemporary fiction for my taste unfortunately but they seem to be doing a good trade otherwise.
Anita Burgh was born on the 9th June 1937 in Gillingham, Kent and now lives in France. I’m not sure how many books she has written, I’ve seen 62 mentioned although PAN only published her first five titles. These included her ‘Daughters of a Granite Land’ trilogy. They have covers by an assortment of artists but one I was surprised to see was Simon Bartram. Why you may ask? Well read below.
When I asked my Grandson William what he would like for Christmas he named four books by Simon Bartram. Simon was a name I thought was new to me but then I remembered seeing him in a list of artists represented by Alison Eldred. I email Alison to ask if Simon would be willing to sign the books he wrote and illustrated. By return I go a message saying he would love to do it and so William is now not only the proud owner of four of Simon’s books signed and embellished by him but also of sheets of stickers, books marks and, not that I’m jealous, his own personal alien! My sister in law is a teacher and Simon’s books featured in class lessons last term so now the signed copies and William’s alien have been view by several classes at the school in Maidstone.
I picked up a book while in Kent, namely ‘Lovely She Goes!’by William Mitford. It was the Sphere edition from 1981 which reminded me of the PAN edition from 1971. Not having the PAN to hand I bought the Sphere anyway to comparing them both. Neither copy appears to have been read and I’m wondering which has the most accurate representation of the trawler involved in the story as there are certainly differences?
One of my other interest I have mentioned occasionally is the maintenance of a disused railway track as a walking/cycling greenway called the ‘McClean Way’ We have wanted it to be properly surfaced since this option was first mentioned in 2000. Now, at last, the first phase of the multi million pound upgrade is taking, place converting six inches of water and mud in to something suitable for all year round use. When this section is finished in a couple of weeks there will be a delay before phase two as we are entering the nesting season from March to August. It looks a bit stark at the moment but nature will soon reclaim the verges.
When I asked my Grandson William what he would like for Christmas he named 
