Having had two family bereavements in very short succession I’ve not really had my mind on the blog for this week. I have managed to finish collecting a couple of sets published by Piccolo, one of which wasn’t helped by Amazon/Alibris/Abebooks/Biblio all having the same ISBN for two different titles and every time I got the one I didn’t want!
The ‘Dial’ series from Piccolo
The ‘Do You Know’ series from Piccolo
While looking through a selection of James Leasor covers I came across the French Edition Pocket of ‘Passport To Oblivion’ and felt the cover image looked vaguely familiar. I’ve thought this in the past but on further investigate would usually find they were just similar but this time these two covers are not just similar but identical. Both books were published in 1967 so which came first?
Left Edition Pocket N°569 <> Right PAN Books Ltd X649
UPDATE Since adding this post I now have the French title in my hand and in the back it says it was published on 30th December 1967 and on the back cover says “Notre Couverture: © Pan Books Ltd. Loudres” so that probably answers the question but did they use anymore?
Now the winter is behind us and spring is on the way (!!!!) our thoughts turn to holidays abroad and the obligatory guide book and PAN was there with their PAN Languages series for travellers. I love the covers by Goran Lindgren which show either typical national costumes or racial stereotyping depend on your point of view.
Douglas Adams would have been 61 today. He was one of PAN’s best selling authors and winner of a Golden PAN Award.
I have often wondered if these titles from the 1960’s were intended to be part of a series but there is no reference to them being any different from other titles from the same time. Were they seen as ‘classics’, a precursor to ‘Bestsellers Of Literature’ and why is the logo moved to the left. Are you thinking ‘Where have I seen a similar design showing the publishers logo with a laurel wreath?’ Click on the question mark to find the answer from 1954.
These are all the titles with the PAN/laurel wreath logo on the spine that I can find in my collectionbut does anyone know of anymore?
After putting the Bonham’s original PAN artwork auction catalogue on recently I thought I would follow it up with another catalogue from around the same time. I borrowed it off fellow Pan Fan Jules Burt and I have scanned it in to make a Flash book. This sale was in response to the Bonham’s one in that it was actually the artists themselves, namely Sam Peffer, Pat Owen and Edward Mortelmans, selling their artwork at an auction run by Simon Marsh-Devine in Bristol around the end of 1991. The catalogue is a photocopy and so the images are a little dark but with the listings I think most of them can be identified. Of note are the Peffer covers for several Fleming titles which I am told are now all owned by the Fleming family, can anyone confirm this?
Statue used as model for PAN Award
Since the 1960’s PAN has awarded a statue of the god Pan to authors who’s books sell over a million copies. The award is based on a bronze statue from Southern Italy in the British Museum. Amongst the recipients of this award are Russell Braddon for “The Naked Island“, John Le Carre for “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold” , Otto Frank on behalf of Anne Frank for “The Diary Of A Young Girl” and more recently Douglas Adams for “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” and several for Wilbur Smith.
John Le Carre with his Golden PAN Award
Wilbur Smith with several Golden PAN Awards
Douglas Adams with his PAN Award
Otto Frank receiving his daughter’s Golden PAN Award.
Someone once mentioned a link between PAN and Ballantine but not what it was. I have just found one in that the PAN wrap around covers for the Roger Coleman ‘Shute’ series from the early 70’s are the same as the Ballantine ones. In the UK PAN gives no clues as to the cover artist but in the US Ballantine acknowledges inside the artist as Roger Coleman. I have found, through a third party, that Roger is now in his 80’s and has become reclusive so I don’t think I can’t ask him if he knew his work was going to be used by two companies and more importantly, did he get paid twice? Neither PAN nor Ballantine mention each other inside the books.
Roger did artwork for many different publisher including the illustrations for this below for Reader’s Digest Condensed Books in 1966. Incidentally Brian Sanders, George Sharp and John Raynes also did artwork for Reader’s Digest.
I recently had a request for a scan of the Bonham’s Catalogue of “Original Paperback Cover Artwork from the Pan Archive” as a reference source for a magazine article followed by “and I need it ASAP”
I scanned it all and then thought why not use the opportunity to make it into a Flash book so to view just click on the image below. As the catalogue has a glued spine it was not always possible to get it to lie flat without damaging it so some pages are a little awry.
This was the sale that caused so much bad feeling between the artists and PAN with several of them protesting outside the sale rooms. The dispute was over who had copyright of the artwork, the company or the artists? The artists always maintained they still retained ownership and the originals should not be sold. This was eventually resolved and the artists do now retain ownership of their works.
I also have the Bonham’s Catalogue of “Original Corgi Paperback Cover Design from the 1950’s, ’60’s and ’70’s” from 12th September 1990 if anyone is interested in that?
I’ve just realised I’ve missed the fact that Alan Bott was born in Stoke-On-Trent on January 14th 120 years ago . I am putting together a page on his involvements with other publishing companies and not just PAN. He started “The Book Society” in 1929, “The Reprint Society” in 1939, “British Publishers Guild” in 1941, “Avalon Press” in 1945,”PAN” in 1945 and assisted in setting up “The Folio Society” in 1947. “PAN” and “Folio” are still going under their own names and “The Reprint Society” became “BCA – Books Clubs Associates” until it’s demise in 2008.
I still have several other bits and pieces to add but wanted to link this with the birthday.
Having accused some booksellers of incompetence I should add this can sometimes be to your advantage. I picked up a copy of the Piccolo book “Fun With Words 2” by Ronald Ridout at a church booksale for next to nothing (I think it was fill a bag for a pound) This started me looking for the other 3 but I was surprised to find they were so scare with only two sellers listing them and then both having “Fun With Words 4” one asking £34 the other £35. One of the sellers had this same edition on eBay, Abebooks, Alibris and Amazon UK all with the price at £34. I just happened to look on Amazon USA and noticed it was there but for 34 cents – yes cents – so I bought it. I was quite expecting to get an email saying they hadn’t got it to get out of the transaction but it arrived today and for 34 cents! I have bought before off sellers on Amazon USA where they have the same price as Amazon UK but one is dollars the other pounds. You just have to watch the extra postage doesn’t outweigh the saving.
