Although I have had a link to artist Neville Dear and a photo for quite a while I’ve not actually shown any of his covers. Now I’ve added a couple of PANs, ‘Fiddlefoot’ being signed (as are the two Corgi covers) but I’m including ‘Place Called Estherville’ as Neville told me it was one of his although I can’t spot a signature.
It is strange but I may forget important events and dates but I rarely forget from where I got a book especially if it was a shop. There is probably a name for this sort of thing but I think I’d rather not know. ‘Fiddlefoot’ was bought from a dealer on the net but ‘Place Called Estherville’ was from a cabinet outside Shakespeare and Company in Paris where Ernest Hemingway was supposed to have slept on the bookshelves!
Good News X 2
Having bitten the bullet I am now the proud owner of an ‘all singing all dancing’ computer running Windows 8 which I have to confess I quite like having progressed from DOS through Windows 3.0, 3.1 (and variants),’95, ’98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista but skipping Windows 7 and I think it turns out to be better than I was lead to believe.
But I digress as the big story of the week is thanks to Tom O’Toole in Harwich who saw my wants list and emailed to say he had a copy of E13 ‘The Boston Strangler’ and that I could have it! This means I am now down to one known remaining title (there may be more that I’ve not discovered yet) and that is X705 ‘PAN Junior Crosswords Book 3’
Another “Westerns” Series
Brief post today as my computer has finally died and I’m having to borrow one until my new one arrives. What I was going to talk about was the PAN series labelled ‘WESTERN‘ on the spine and having a hat logo on the back. I can’t update the page showing them at the moment so they are all labelled the same but here they are anyway.
“Panorex”
In the 1970’s Peter Tietjen was working at PAN (at the same time as Ken Hatherley) and he came up with a design for a “self-erecting piece of display material that was going to completely revolutionise in-store book displays”
I found the following on an Australian website;
DISPLAY UNIT – 198704242
DESIGN DETAILS
Owner: Pan Books Ltd Designers: Peter Tietjen Description: DISPLAY UNIT Statement: Monopoly is claimed in the shape and/or configuration of a display unit as illustrated in the accompanying representations. This page contains all relevant details related to design number 198704242. This design was lodged on 18/11/1987 and has a status of Currently Not Renewed. The owner of the design is registered as Pan Books Ltd They used the attorney firm Griffith Hack to file this. The design was registered on 15/12/1988 and has been renewed to 18/11/1993
I’ve tried to contact Peter but no luck so far. Does anyone know if it actually “revolutionised” displays as we know them?
‘Best Of American Crime Fiction’ Series
A couple of months ago I mentioned the PAN ‘Great Western Novels’ series and managed to find five titles. I have now come across titles as part of PAN’s ‘Best Of American Crime Fiction’ series but so far have only found a few labelled as such from Erle Stanley Gardener, Hillary Waugh, Patricia Highsmith and Charles Williams. Ed McBain and John D MacDonald are also supposed to be part of the series but none of their books that I have state this, they just appear in a list on the back covers of other authors titles.
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- 0330 24146X from 1975
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- 0330 243454 from 1975
……. and talking of Gardner has anyone any more with this style of cover or any more in the series? I have found ‘The Case Of The Blonde Bonanza’ and ‘The Case Of The Mischievous Doll’ both listed as having 1975 PAN editions but I’ve not found an image of them.
Foreign News
Having returned from Gran Canaria this week I have to say I was very disappointed. Not in the place or the weather but in the lack of book shops of any sort let alone second hand ones. A church jumble sale and a couple of Sunday market stalls also proved fruitless.
On a more positive note my ‘overseas agent’ Bazeer Flumore who I’m sure you don’t need reminding runs the excellent PizGloria website did at least spot some PANs at the annual Clunes Book Fair but unfortunately not those the two elusive titles I’m after.
I was pleased to see the copy of “Return Of The Tiger” in the box as I have the original artwork for this cover and it has been displayed on the sidebar for a little while.
PAN Branded Merchandise
As I’ve noted before PAN didn’t seem to go in for branded merchandise as much as other publishers like Penguin but I do have a couple of examples that I’ve unearthed. The first is a shoulder bag and the second a Stratton powder compact. Were these given away or did they have to be paid for and has anyone any other examples we can add?
More Dustjackets
I’d like to say thank you to Jack for telling me about two books I didn’t know had dust jackets. I think it is probably the usual story of PAN updating from old stock especially with these to make them match the others in the series. The two are from “Battle Of Britain” namely T45 “Full Circle” with the Shepherd cover having a Glenn Steward jacket and “Eagle Day” with the Ettridge cover again with a Steward jacket.
Founder of PAN Books Alan Bott Part 6
As I’ve mentioned before Alan Bott and his wife were great friends with Hugh Walpole and often stayed with him at his house “Brackenburn Lodge” in the Lake District. In 1941 Walpole dedicated two of his publications to Alan. The first was number 9 in the MacMillan War Pamphlets series of 15
The second was “The Blind Man’s House” dedicated to both Alan Bott and his wife Josephine (nee Blumenfeld)
It was while at Brackenburn Lodge near Keswick that Walpole wrote his quartet the “Rogue Herries Chronicles”
On a different subject my daughter bought me a Kindle for my birthday and she was surprised at how pleased I was. I had to admit it was because it has wi-fi and my phone doesn’t so I can now check up on all those covers I’m never quite sure of, buy and then find I already have several (as long as there’s a McDonalds close by)
PAN Piper 67’s?
I had a recent enquiry from a fellow PAN Fan Jem who asked about PAN Pipers specifically MP67 “Australia:Her Story” (MP because it cost 5/-) and XP67 “Enemy Of Rome” (XP because it cost 3/6) and who wondered why PAN had used the same number for both titles?
This is a mistake on PANs part in that XP67 should really be XP70.
Whitakers Paperbacks In Print Winter 1965/66
If XP67 had been incorrectly labelled as ??47 (anyone know what it is?) then it might be a more understandable mistake.