Australian Special

I was going to try and tie this in with an Australian holiday but missed what sounded like a great idea namely “Picnic Day” on 1st August in the Northern Territory.

I’m going to look at three titles with an Australian link.

“Variable Winds at Jalna” was printed in the UK but only has prices on the back for Australia and Canada. On the front is a sticker I’ve seen before which I’m presuming was put on by an Australian distributor? Can anyone enlarge on that?
I found a website that said the cover was by Gordon King and I was really pleased as I have the original artwork but it is not signed. I contacted Gordon who wrote back to say it is DEFINATELY not one of his and he only did 4 of the 16 in the Jalna series.

I’ve not seen this Piccolo title on sale anywhere but in Australia so maybe it was one exclusively for there, the only Australian printed Piccolo I’ve come across. The cover is by Walter Cunningham who was born in 1910 in Surrey, England and emigrated to Australia in 1924. He joined the staff of John Sands in 1926 eventually becoming manager of the art department. He died in August 1988 at Mona Vale, New South Wales.

The last title was printed in Australia but on the back cover the only price says it was £1.75 in the UK. Is this a rare case of books being sent from Australia and priced here in the UK instead of the usual other way around? The cover looked like it could be by Paul Sample (Tom Sharpe covers) and so I emailed him to ask if he remembers doing it or if I’ve insulted him as well by implying it could be one of his. He replied very promptly to say;

Dear Tim
Yes, it is one of my illustrations, dating from the early 70’s……….I can remember drawing it, dip pen, ink and watercolour. I did quite a few bookjacket illustrations besides all the ones for Tom Sharpe’s books. Not all of the jackets were for Pan though.
Cheers,
Paul

Mark Peppé etc.

This weeks original artwork is the Piccolo 1972 edition of ‘The Foxhole’ by Ian Southall with cover artwork by Mark Peppé. Unfortunately I don’t seem to be able to get a good photo with my camera and the colours are no where near as washed out as they appear. I think a visit to the library to use their photocopier is called for again.

Hector1 I recently picked up a copy of ‘Make and Share’ from the HECTOR CLUB which was started by the charity ‘Help the Aged’ I have only found the one title so far but I have added a few of the club badges plus details of a competition winner and his ‘wonderful’ prize!

I recently featured the original artwork for a couple of slightly salacious covers for Caldwell titles by artist Hans Helweg. Helweg painted many titles for PAN and one day I’ll get around to putting them all on one page but he also did a two/three covers for Piccolo featuring ‘Oggy the Hedgehog’ The reason I put two/three is in two of them if definitely states Hans produced the covers and illustrations but in the third he is only credited with illustrating the contents.

Peter Charles artwork etc.

This weeks original artwork is by Peter Charles It is the cover for ‘The House At World’s End’ by Monica Dickens. There were three other titles in the ‘World’s End’ series published by Piccolo in the 70’s all with cover artwork by the same artist. Any information on Peter Charles would be gratefully received.

I’ve also been checking up on other pages that have been on the site for a while and realied I’ve been a title short on one of the Alfred Hitchcock pages namely ‘Stories Not For The Nervous Book 2’ which I’ve now rectified.

Another page I’ve now updated was showing the four titles in the ‘Rogue Herries’ series by Hugh Walpole with covers by John Raynes. I’ve added later editions with photo covers but not really too sure if I like them.

…. and finally is this a record for a first edition of ‘Casino Royale’ on eBay?

Alan and Alice In Wonderland

As I’ve mentioned before over the next few weeks I’m showing some of the original cover artwork I was luck enough to purchased recently. One of them was by Alan Lee and I’ve put it on a page along with one I already had which we are pretty sure is by Alan although not signed. I hope to be able catch up with Alan to get him to sign them for me.

On July 4th 1862 Charles Dodgson is supposed to have told his tale to Alice Liddell in a boat on the River Isis. This tale ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was first published in 1865 and has never been out of print for 150 years. PAN as usual decided to do something odd with their numbering and published it as G1 in 1947 and again as GP1 in 1948 but what happened to G2 to G100? It was published as a Piccolo imprint in 1973 and 1977.

Hans Helweg Original Artwork

I’m going to be including the original artwork I was lucky enough to get recently in the next few blogs. Today I am showing the only two PAN titles (the others being from PAN’s children’s imprint Piccolo) I was really pleased to find they were for two Erskine Caldwell titles and both signed by Hans Helweg.They are about as raunchy as PAN got back in the late 50’s and early 60’s
Helweg was Danish and I think his dates were 21st Feb 1917 to 23rd June 2008. Information is scarce but I did find this on a blog from Hereford College of Art

“The widow of Illustrator Hans Helweg, Sue Bell has kindly donated his easel, brushes and other art materials to the Illustration course. Hans was a brilliant Illustrator who is most famous for his work with Paddington Bear creator Michael Bond on his Olga da Polga books. Hans also illustrated many book covers for Pan in the early 1960’s and his artwork is still much collected by fans of the English/European ‘pulp fiction’ scene. I will be writing more about Hans later in the year”

I have contacted both the author of the blog (last updated 2011?) regarding the last line and the college regarding the donation and possible contact details for Sue Bell but up to now have heard nothing.

Just found a Reader’s Digest Condescend Book version of ‘River God’ which was illustrated by Neville Dear . As his page has always been a bit thin I’ve now included the frontispiece.

Cecil Vieweg

It has been a pleasure to talk with Cecil (Cec to his friends) Vieweg over the last few months and I have put together a page HERE to show most of his PAN covers plus several other works for different publications. I have also included a brief biography. Cec was producing covers for PAN from the early 70’s after he arrived in the UK from South Africa in 1968 and continued up to the early 90’s.
He was at PAN at the same time as George Sharp and I am pleased to say that I have put them in contact with each other after many years and we hope to all meet up somewhere soon. I’ll be there with my camera.
I added two more scans of frontispieces from Reader’s Digest Condensed Books yesterday as mother-in-law has moved care homes this weekend and the new one has another shelf of these volumes for me to look through!

Just heard of the death of James Salter last Friday (born Horowitz 10/06/25) whose first novel ‘The Hunters’ was published by PAN as G151 in 1958.

Marguerite Patten 04/11/15 – 04/04/15

I had one of those odd, and a little sad, coincidences this week. I was near Cambridge last Wednesday to pick up some books which happened to be the Piccolo Marguerite Patten Cook Books which Eileen Strange had signed for me as she did the illustrations. It was while driving away from the house of a friend of hers that I heard on the radio the news that Marguerite had just died only a few months short of her century. Eileen knew Marguerite and said what a lovely ‘down to earth’ lady she was.

The reason I was collecting the books from Cambridge was that Eillen lives on the Isle of Coll off the Scottish mainland and it was luck that a friend of hers, Cliff from Cambridge, was happy to bring them down, plus several other bits and pieces, for me to pick up closer to home.

Eileen’s first husband John worked in the art department at PAN and rescued some cover artworks. Unfortunately her second husband has recently died and she is now trying to downsize and wants to travel and I was happy to buy a few PAN / Piccolo related items from her,. We came to an amicable settlement and I’ve helped her on her way to Uzbekistan in November.

I’ll be featuring the original artworks in coming blogs including some by Alan Cracknell, Alan Lee and Hans Helweg.

Piccolo ‘Fun For ……’ Series

In 1989 Piccolo published four titles edited by Mary Danby entitled ‘Fun For 5 Year Olds’, ‘Fun For 6 Year Olds’, ‘Fun For 7 Year Olds’ and you’ve guessed it ‘Fun For 8 Year Olds’ They were a compilation of games and puzzles from various publications by a variety of publishers. I am still trying to ascertain if the Mary Danby who wrote over 65 horror stories is the same as the Mary Danby responsible for a wide variety of Piccolo titles. Unusually the four covers are by four different artists including Kim Blundell and Ed McHenry (cartoonist) both of whom I trying to find a way to contact, Bryan Reading (cartoonist) who I think has just died and finally Toni Goffe, fellow cat lover, to whom I’ve just sent an email.

Toni Goffe from his website

…………. and again another 7 Cartland titles added making it 116 out of 133.

Sad News, Gumbles and Dust Jackets

Sadly my Father-in-Law died last week. Bob had been suffering for several months but passed away peacefully in his sleep. R.I.P.

I mentioned in the last blog the passing of Desmond Digby original illustrator of the “Gumbles” books and went to sort out my three titles I knew PAN published under the Piccolo imprint. I was surprised to find that I had forgotten one was a later edition after Piccolo changed to Young Piper and that the cover was actually by Sandy Nightingale. I’ve sent her an email and will keep fingers crossed for a reply. PAN only published three of the four titles written by Sidney Wakefield and didn’t include the “Gumbles in Trouble” or the omnibus edition.

I also spotted a variant of a dust jacket on Flickr. This time it was for “Flames Coming Out the Top” by Norman Collins, PAN number 74, and the challenge now is to find a copy. To see the others go HERE. You’ll notice that there are two variant dust jackets for PAN 90 “Action For Slander” as well which makes me wonder how many of the others had more than one?

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Category Archives: Artists