PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

Failure Moan!

Not quite PAN but more a TiKiT website name related post. For years I’ve had the same registration number and transferred the plate from car to car. Sometimes some  of these cars have needed an MOT. Now for the first time my car did not pass until I had spent £10 on another set of number plates and the reason being there was not a  space between the 4 and the following T! Now looking around at other cars I can only presume they must change theirs if they need an MOT as some are almost illegible in an effort to try and make it spell something. I have to say my favourite was a BMW convertible with two blonde ladies on board and the plate read BOO8 with the two black fasteners strategically placed.

NumberPlate

Warning – this is an illegal number plate!

‘The Land Of Shinar’

Puabi

Headdress of Princess Puabi

I recently acquired a glass photographic plate as it said on it ‘PAN Books F466’ I thought the image looked vaguely familiar and thanks to a quick Google images search I had the answer which is that it is the head on the front cover of TP148 ‘The Land Of Shinar‘ by Leonard Cottrell. I presume the image was to to be used in a publication to advertise the book but the photo is not of the PAN edition as you can see there is a description under the headdress and another image to the left.

Fame At Last

I was recently cajoled into putting on a display to run for a month at our local museum where they have an area called ‘Your Corner’. I was Mr October with a selection of PAN related material following on from Mr September ’90 Years of the Radio Times’ and before Mr November Geoff Tristram an artist who designed stamps and banknotes. It started of locally and went wider and I’m pleased to say the newspaper coverage included a plea for the last known title I’m still after so fingers crossed. Interestingly none of the books shown in the newspaper photo are actually part of the collection being ones with ISBNs. Click on the blurb below to see some of the display.

Pan Paperbacks Display

James Herriot

Following on from my recent post about James Herriot I came across a edition on eBay from Canada. The seller said it was PAN but gave no ISBN so I posted a question to ask but got no reply and the sale has now ended. Does any one recognise it as being published by PAN?Herriot

UPDATE I have now spoken to the seller and they say they can’t find it anymore!

Godley and Creme

While idly searching for all things PAN I found a reference to a book “The Charge of The Light Brigade” which including a cardboard model to cut out and make of a Hussar by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. The site stated it was published by PAN but it was not one I knew. I do have “The Railway Children”  and “Cromwell” both published by PAN and both including cardboard models by Godley and Creme. On further investigation I found it was actually published by Cato O’Brien and even though not PAN I’m going to add it to my informal ‘wants’ list so if anyone out there has a spare copy …….?


If Godley and Creme sound vaguely familiar it is because they were part of ’10cc’ before splitting up and becoming ‘Godley & Creme’ in the late 1970’s

Gino D’Achille

Photograh from the website of Gino D'AchilleGino D’Achille was born in Rome in 1935  and was a prolific book cover artist for numerous publishers including PAN. I will be adding a selection of his covers over the next few weeks but for now I’ve made a page to show all the 10 HART titles by John B Harvey with artwork by Gino. I have been in contact with him via Simona D’Achille who tells me “He remembers painting these covers very well, he had free reign in terms of artistic choices and he retains all publishing rights. He also retains his originals and we are presently working on making prints available soon” Some of the originals can be seen on Gino’s website. Gino now lives in London but unfortunately suffers from Parkinson’s Disease though he is still able to sketch.

James Alfred Wright and Golden PAN Awards

Click here to visit The World Of James Herriot website.

Just back from our annual jaunt up north to do another 15 miles walking the ‘Yorkshire Wolds Way’ (we should finish it in about 3 years at this rate !) and this time we made an excursion to the market town of Thirsk in North Yorkshire. I had found a reference on the BBC ‘History Of The World’ site to there being a Golden PAN Award belonging to James Alfred Wright, better know as James Herriot, in the ‘World Of James Herriot’ museum in the town so a visit became a priority. I contacted Ian Ashton, the MD, and he kindly got the award out of safe storage as it is not normally on display. I could not only see one at last close up but best of all I actually got to hold it. Thanks to all at the museum which is  well worth a visit with room after room of fascinating material.
plaque1

 Click this link to go to the James Herriot Golden PAN Award
Click this link to see other other Golden PAN Award authors

“Midnight Lace” PAN Books – Nationwide Promotion

Midnight LaceI recently acquired the press promo pack for the 1960 film “Midnight Lace” and included was a single page insert from PAN. I’ve scanned this along with the rest of the pack and made into a flash book. On the single page it states:
“PAN Books are the publishers of the paper-back edition of “MIDNIGHT LACE” They are issuing 2,000 showcards to their many stockists throughout the country backing up this promotion. Additional showcards can be obtained free on request from Ad-Sales Dept”
What happened to those 2,000+ showcards, did anyone think one was worth keeping or did they all get thrown away?

PAN Horror Books

bookmarkAfter reading the excellent article “The Nightmare Painters” relating to PAN Horror Books by Johnny Mains in issue 4 of the ‘Illustrators’ Magazine (I’m giving it a plug as it’s gave me one in issue 1 and it’s also a really good magazine) ) I realised how few titles I had actually got. On looking on eBay I found a complete set at 99p but with the dreaded words ‘collection only’ which I usually avoid but then realised the post code was for a road just 2 miles away. In went the bid and although they were just a little more than 99p I picked them up the next day and the majority are in very good condition. I’ve scanned them all in and put them on one page as there are not many sites that show them all at the same time. The dates are for the actual dates in the books so not all first.
To complement the Horror books I’ll make a page for the Ghost books as I think I have them all so watch this space.