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

Founder of PAN Books Alan Bott Part 5

Alan Bott joined the Royal Flying Corps as a member of the 70th. Squadron (Umpty Squadron) in April 1917.  He was credited with 5 ‘kills’ during the time he was in France. It was after he joined the 111th Squadron that Captain Bott crashed in the desert on April 22nd. and became imprisoned by the Turks. He later  wrote about his escape to Constantinople in Eastern Flights which had earlier been serialised in several publications notably Harper’s Monthly Magazine where it appeared in 5 parts from September 1919. The ‘crash’ was featured in a painting by Stuart Read which is currently in storage at the Imperial War Museum in London. He continued to fly and in 1928 he got his certificate of competence from the Hampshire Aeroplane Club.
   

LIcence 

Flier

STOP PRESS

This weeks blog will appear when a cat has stopped having kittens under our bed – and it’s not even our cat!

UPDATE Just one kitten but very sweet. Looks like it has got its colouring from all of the four possible fathers!

Life Size

Life Size

Which Came First?

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?

Same Covers

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?

PAN Languages Series

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.

     

I have found fifteen titles up to now but if anyone has others please let us know

Douglas Adams would have been 61 today. He was one of PAN’s best selling authors and winner of a Golden PAN Award.

Was This A Named Series?

Was this a series?

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.

Question?

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?

Marsh-Devine Artwork Catalogue

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?

Marsh-Devine Auction Catalogue

Golden PAN Award

PAN

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

John Le Carre with his Golden PAN Award

Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Smith with several Golden PAN Awards

Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams with his PAN Award

OttoFrank

Otto Frank receiving his daughter’s Golden PAN Award.

Roger Coleman

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.

The Man With The Golden Gun

Bonham’s Catalogue 15th October 1991

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?