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’
A Couple of Bits of PAN Ephemera
A while ago I mentioned the PANOREX display stand designed by Peter Tietjen and if you click on the picture below you can see other bits of ephemera he has stored away. Peter joined PAN in 1971, moving from EMI, when Ralph Vernon-Hunt was the managing director. He was there at the same time as Ken Hatherley who was the studio manager.
The ‘Double Dagger’ Series
Every now and again I come across a series of PAN books that should not really be on the site but the Agatha Christie ‘Double Dagger’ covers just appeal to me. They reasons they don’t really fit are 1) a few years later than the remit of the site but this has never stopped me before and 2) they are photos not ‘real’ artwork.
I think it is the quirky and inventive use of the associated objects to form faces although some are better than others. Up to now I have 14 titles but I’m sure someone will let me know if I have missed any?
My personal favourite
For those embracing the new technologies you can scan the QR code below to go to the page on your mobile device. This will probably be the first and last time I use one of these but having now got a phone that reads them ……….!
A Loo With A View?
Just planning a visit to the above when I remembered photos I took when I was last there. It is not everyday that I use my camera when visiting the toilet but this time I made an exception and if you click HERE you’ll see why.
Whilst talking about remembering, or rather forgetting, I don’t know if I ever put on a link to a page I made about PAN Books despatch centres after I visited a couple in 2012. Please ignore if you have already seen this but if not click HERE.
Happy 2014 – but not for Geoff!
Happy New Year to all PAN Fans everywhere.
I recently met up with artist Geoff Tristram who was ‘Mr November’ to my ‘Mr October’ in the display corner of our local museum. I tracked down one of his book covers which he kindly signed for me. His website shows many examples of his work but unfortunately I can’t find any of the paperback covers he has done. The reason I say it may not be a ‘Happy New Year’ for Geoff can be found by clicking on this link!
PS Just caught an item on the radio where the ‘British Medical Journal’ has analysed James Bond’s drinking and the prognosis is not good! They have produced a chart to show their conclusions.
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas to all PAN Fans everywhere.
Alan Bott, founder of PAN Books was editor of ‘The Graphic’ from 1926 to 1932
This Cover is by Frederick William Purvis who was born in 1867 and died at 22, Regent Rd on April 4th 1939. He was buried in Surbiton Burial Ground in plot 667. The burial ceremony was conducted by the prolific author Harry George Tunnicliff.
Happy Birthday
My website www.tikit.net started 14th years ago today. Back then I was an IT Advisor for an education authority and wrote several programs for children and set up the website to distribute them. I wish I could say I made money but I gave the downloads away 90% of the time. When I realised I was paying for hosting which gave me much more space than I actually needed I decided to share my passion for PAN Books with the world – and it’s been all down hill from then on. I now have several websites and a few redirections so ones like www.panfans.net will also find me.
Google started 1998
PAN Fans started 1999
FriendsReunited started 2000
Wikipedia started 2001
Linkedin started 2002
MySpace started 2003
Facebook started 2004
YouTube started 2005
Twitter started 2006