Eric Rücker Eddison (24/11/1882 – 18/08/1945) is probably best known for his early romance ‘The Worm Ouroboros’ (1922) and for three volumes set in the imaginary world of Zimiamvia, known as the Zimiamvian Trilogy: ‘Mistress of Mistresses’ (1935), ‘A Fish Dinner in Memison’ (1941), and ‘The Mezentian Gate’ (1958). Born in Leeds, Eddison was privately educated before going  to Oxford and ended up a senior civil servant eventually retiring to write full time.

All these four titles were originally published by Ballantine in the US/Canada  with covers by Barbara Remington before being reprinted by PAN/Ballantine in the UK. It’s interesting to note the overprinting where prices and US book numbers have been covered up. I’ve put together a page to show some of the PAN/Ballantine variations I have on my shelves.

Barbara Remington is probably better know for the Ballantine covers for Tolkein’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. She is quoted as saying she would have ‘definitely drawn different pictures had I read the books first’ not being able to get hold of copies prior to painting the covers! This is a question I’m often asked ‘Did the artists read the books first’ to which the answer seems to be ‘Very rarely’ not being given enough time, just a précis,  although PEFF said he did.

I see the original concept artwork for the cover of ‘The Fellowship of the Rings’ is currently on eBay at £14,395.50, a poster as seen in this picture for £1,51.37 and a boxed set of the books just like the ones I got for £9.99  are listed at £238.87! The three covers are designed to make a panorama so why is it that so many images showing the three in line are not in the right order?

Having been in Norfolk for a few days means I’ve slipped behind with todays blog so here is a quick stop gap, back to normal(?) next week.

Quite a while ago I spotted a piece of original artwork which I recognised but it was credited incorrectly. It was supposedly by David Stowe, landscape artist and purported to be a S/F video cover from the 1980’s. In fact it was by PAN book cover artist Derek Stowe and it was the front cover of issue 88 of ‘Understanding Science’ from 1962. As the price was reasonable I bought it, emailed Derek about it and he was amazed as he thought all the artwork was held in captivity by publishers Sampson Low.

As a glutton for punishment I have started to scan in all 144 front covers from ‘Understanding Science’ which I picked up at a very cheap price but then had to pay over three times what I paid for them for carriage! I was surprised to see they were the rarer first printings and all in binders which is why it will take time to scan, they don’t want to come out willingly.

I recently managed to buy a copy of the UK film poster for ‘Angelique: Marquise of the Angels’ which shows two Pan book covers. After looking for this item for a long time I found one at a price I was willing to pay, one site was asking £299!

The original film was directed by Bernard Borderie and was a French production released there in 1964 and the UK version was released in 1967. Below are the two PAN editions featuring stills from the film as on the poster plus one other showing a different film still.

“The Marquise of the Angels” (T51) is dated 1968, after the release of the film in the UK, but “The Road to Versailles” (T52) is dated 1966 prior to the UK release. The third book is another copy of “The Road to Versailles” (330 30052 0) which is dated 1968. The first two titles both say the 1964 film is based on the books ‘The Marquise of the Angels’ and ‘The Road to Versailles” The other one doesn’t although the credited actors on the front are from the 1965 film “Angelique: The Road to Versailles”

It was a sad surprise to hear on the radio yesterday morning that Jackie Collins had died. As I get older 77 now seems to be no age at all but unfortunately breast cancer is no respecter of age. I have not met her but I have met people who were present when she visited the PAN offices and they were all unanimous in saying what a charming and unassuming lady she was.

In the top photo she is with Ken Hatherley and George Sharp while below with Peter Tietjen.I had only just received the latest chapter to her book as a member of her Fan Club and eventually managed to find my dedicated photo. She won at least 5 Golden PAN awards for selling over a million copies of a title.

I’m sorry to say I do cannot lay my hands on any of her books published by PAN at the moment so have resorted to the net to make the following compilation of examples.

In 1947 there was a paper shortage in the UK for printing books so to get around this PAN had early titles printed in France where paper was more readily available. This gave rise to the problem of transportation so PAN purchased the ex Royal Navy Motor Launch 225 and used it to carry books down the Seine from Paris, across the Channel and then up the Thames to Kingston Wharf. The boat was built in 1941 at Brightlingsea by Aldous and was offered for disposal in October 1945.Unfortunately the above cutting got the name of the boat wrong and added an ‘o’. If you click HERE you can see a photo of ‘Lalun’ ( the name of a prostitute in Kipling’s ‘short story ‘On the City Wall’) moored up at Kingston Wharf and as far as I know this may be a world exclusive thanks to Adrian Bott, Alan Bott’s Grandson lending me a photo album, more from which later. Interesting that the article says the books were intended ‘chiefly for export’

Kingston-upon-Thames Wharf

Fellow PAN Fan Jules Burt is looking for funds to purchase equipment so he can produce high quality images for a book. He is probably most well known for his ‘penguinaday’ but he is also going to show other publishers including, and this caught my interest, PAN so if you want to help and find out more go HERE

Finally yet another moan about book sellers who cannot be bothered to check their titles to verify an edition shown with a ‘stock photo’ I’ve used this dealer in the past who has been quite happy to check but now they say “Regrettably I will be unable to confirm this information for you as our warehouse operation is not set up to enable us to. As we carry a very large inventory it is difficult to search for specific information. The listing is generally connected via the ISBN or EAN for media, which should give you all the required information.” Funny how they can find the book quickly enough if I want to buy it and it’s all very well saying I can return it if not happy, I’d just rather they could answer a simple question – does it look like the photo in the listing?

Suprisingly managed to set up a visit from Johnny Mains last Saturday. I was supposed to be in Austria but dates changed and when I saw Johnny was visiting a bookshop locally (the one from which I’m banned) I invited him over. I think he liked my collection of books including the PANs , commenting on the quantity, something my wife often does, but not with the same feeling! Here are a couple of selfies he’s posted on line plus a photo I took of him holding a copy of ‘Tales of the Supernatural’ I gave him as his had disappeared.

Johnny is working on several different things at the moment but is hoping to get his ‘PAN Book of Horror Stories Scrapbook’ out before Christmas. Here is a rough draft of the cover.
Just added another screen capture to the ‘PAN as Seen on TV’ section with a shot of presenter Paul Martin from ‘Flog It’ on BBC1 26th August 2015. He was walking down a corridor at Prideux Place in Cornwall and I noticed on the right there were several PAN editions of Georgette Heyer titles of various vintage (sorry about the page formatting as it has life of its own and screws everything up whenever I add anything to it. It will get a complete rebuild – one day)

Lastly sad to see ‘Reader’s World’ second-hand bookshop in Birmingham has closed down. I’m not surprised as I rarely saw anyone in there when I undertook my twice yearly visit to say ‘Hi’ to some old friends that had been on the shelves for many a year.