You wait for months for one and then two come along at once. I managed to get hold of 7th Piccolo Crosswords Book last week and this week the 4th. So next week it will be number 11 and then number 12 – if only!
RIP Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer 3rd November 1921 – 14th March 2014
I was very sorry to read in ‘The Times’ an obituary of Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer, the prolific PAN book cover artist. I met him on several occasions and he was always happy to talk about his time at PAN and other publishers. I have one piece of original artwork plus numerous signed books. Click on the photo to see the artwork.
In Memory Of Moxley RIP
Sadly last Tuesday we had to have our cat, Moxley, put to sleep. He suddenly went down with saddle thrombosis and the prognosis was not good. He was the same age as my website and was probably on my lap while I inputted at least 90% of the contents. It was our daily routine so I dedicate this site to his memory, a friend and companion. As I look out the window I can see his grave alongside the other seven much loved and sadly missed family pets from over the last 38 years.
On a more upbeat note I have been contacted by a cover artist who did at least 14 covers for PAN in the 50’s and many others for different publishers. I am waiting for some photos and hopefully can name names next week. It makes such a change for someone to come to me rather than me badgering them!
I’ve also managed to get one step closer to getting a full set of the Piccolo Junior Crossword books unlike the PAN editions! I often check the numbers I am missing and number 7 was elusive until now when suddenly two copies become available!
Rose Franken
I recently picked up a copy of “Young Claudia” number 528 in the DELL Mapbacks series which looks as though it has never been read. It was the cover which caught my attention as it is certainly more eye catching than the covers from PAN. I sorted out the other titles published by PAN, rescanned them and put them on a page along with the DELL cover. I’m left wondering why PAN only published 7 of the 9 titles in the series. Number 8 was ‘The Antic Years’ and number 9 was ‘Return Of Claudia’ There were a couple of other titles but these were omnibus editions.
Going back a few blogs where I mentioned recycled artwork, I heard from Uilke in The Netherlands who pointed me in the direction of another one ( his site is well worth visiting for his extensive collection of paperback covers) It is from Ullstein Bucher and is Hodder not PAN related this time. You’ll noticed it has been flipped as the signature is backwards.
Robert Carrier 1923 – 2006
In 1971 PAN brought out a set of six ‘mini books’ (approximately 5″ x 5″) written by the ‘Peter Pan’ of cooks Robert Carrier. The six books gave suggestions for suppers, luncheons, barbecues, breakfasts/brunches, dinners and children’s parties. I have often seen individual titles for sale but I’ve only just acquired the set in a slip case. Click on the picture of Robert Carrier to go to his page.
Sorry for another short posting but my iritis has returned after an absence of twenty years so the world is currently a haze while I have to keep putting drops in my eyes.
“I don’t believe it!”
Quick blog this week as I have been away ‘up north’ for the ‘Great Goodbye’ where 6 A4 steam locomotives were brought together for possibly the last time as 2 are going overseas. Very impressive but very popular with over 72,000 visitors during the few days they were there.
What also caught my eye last week was the chutzpah of a company selling on eBay. If you do a search for ‘Alan Bott’ in the Art Category with Title and Description ticked you may come up with 84 hits. They are all prints from the book “The Londoner’s England” which must have been taken to pieces. The price range goes up to £16.99 for one page (!!!!) when on AbeBooks you can buy a complete book for under £5, why not buy two as some pages are double sided?
Christie at Bantock House
While looking through a local paper ‘The Black Country Bugle’ I noticed three articles all mentioning Bantock House. The first was about it being praised by Michael Portillo visiting as part of his railway journeys series, the second was the council wanting to close it down to save money but the third was the one that caught my eye. Unfortunately I was to late to see it but they had run an exhibition called ‘A Tribute to Agatha Christie” and the picture showed some book covers. It was ‘Dumb Witness’ that jumped out and so I’ve made a page to show all the PAN editions that I found I have.
I’ve also added an extra Somerset Maugham cover, a 1974 edition of ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ but it seems this is a ‘one off’ as I’ve not found any others with this style of cover.
William Somerset Maugham
I intended to put this on last month around the time of Someset Maugham’s birthday but Russell Braddon got there first alphabetically speaking as they were both born on the 25th January. Someset Maugham was born in Paris (in the British Embassy so he can be called British) in 1874 and died in Nice on the 16th December 1965. I have put together a page of the titles PAN published over 30 years and I know there are some titles not included. I found a couple published by Penguin but were they also published by PAN at sometime? I’m sure someone will let me know.
Incidentally I mentioned the title ‘The Explorer’ in a previous blog and I’m still looking for the edition with the back cover actually printed from the block I have.
Gordon King Cover Artist
While looking at Hodder ‘Saint‘ covers as mentioned recently I noticed a couple were signed Gordon King. I thought this name sounded familiar and on further investigation I found a few he painted for PAN. Thanks to the net I managed to get an email address for him and after sending him a few covers he kindly replied confirming or rejecting ones I wasn’t sure about. I have put together a page to show the covers I know of including some from PAN plus other publishers.
This is Gordon holding a cover for an unknown title, does anyone recognise it? I think it looks a little like some in the ‘PAN Romance’ series (a work in progress) while others Mills and Boon! Gordon has now moved on from book covers to more lucrative commissions.
Russell Braddon ‘Naked Island’
Russell Braddon was born January 25th 1921 and although the author of many books he is best remembered for ‘The Naked Island’ which was first published in 1952 by T. Werner Laurie Ltd. The cover was by Ronald Searle who was a prisoner with Braddon in Burma and is probably most well know as the creator of St Trinian’s School. His drawings, used to illustrated Braddon’s book, were in the hardback but not the PAN editions. 
I have included scans of six different PAN editions but let me know if you have others. I found it interesting to see the references to how many copies have been sold over the years.
“World sales approaching a million copies!”
“Over 850,000 copies sold in PAN alone”
“Almost 1,000,000 copies sold in PAN Books alone”
“Over 1,000,000 copies sold in PAN”
“More than a million copies sold”
Other Braddon titles in PAN are ‘Nancy Wake’ and ‘Nancy Wake’ ‘End Of A Hate’, ‘The Year Of The Angry Rabbit’, ‘The Proud American Boy’ and ‘Committal Chamber’