While in Kent we visited several National Trust properties featuring impressive libraries of shelves and shelves of, probably unread, leather bound books. So it was very heartening to see this set of shelves in the corridor at Scotney Castle which included many PANs especially Christie and Heyer – and they looked as though they had been read!

Just been in Kent for a couple of weeks camping and amazingly we only had one night of wind and rain! Before we went I looked on the 007 MAGAZINE website and managed to get to one of the mentioned locations namely Pett Bottom where there is a plaque on the wall of the Duck Inn commemorating the fact Ian Fleming stayed there while writing “You Only Live Twice” Here I am holding my 1965 copy which also has a film tie-in dust jacket and states on the back ‘Not for sale in the UK’

While talking with Johnny Mains we were trying to see if there was a link between Alan Bott and Herbert van Thal. They were both friendly with Sir Hugh Walpole and it is a distinct possibility that they could have met up socially at Brackenburn, Walpole’s house in the Lake District. Walpole, to celebrate his 50th birthday had privately printed and bound in vellum by The University Press, Glasgow 100 signed and numbered copies of his work “Extracts From A Diary’ which he intended to give to his friends at his party.

Unfortunately he wasn’t well on his birthday so the party was delayed as shown in a letter he wrote to Alan Bott. I was wondering if val Thal got one as well so I have been trying to track down other copies but although I have the following numbers and their locations only a couple have their recipients name shown in brackets. S/C means they have a slip case and G/J a glassine jacket.

• 03 Tim Kitchen (Alan Bott)
• 09 Library Of Congress
• 18 University Of Tulsa
• 29 Yale University
• 37 National Library Of Scotland
• 40 Huntington Library
• 41 Sold by Biblio to ? S/C G/J
• 42 Godfrey Holdstock S/C
• 44 Stanford University
• 45 University Of Melbourne
• 46 Lilly Library
• 49 UCLA Library
• 58 Dee MacLean (Jack and Edith Eliot)
• 65 Alexander Turnbull Library
• 68 Sold by Harper Field Auctioneers to ? 2018 S/C
• 71 Simon Dunant
• 76 Ann Bolam Gifted by Hart-Davies S/C with George Cukor written on it
• 80 Ann Bolam
• 81 Library of Congress (Jean Hersholt)
• 84 Boston University
• 87 University Of Texas
• 88 Bodleian Library
• 89 British Library
• 92 Cambridge University
• 93 London Library
• 94 British Library
• 100 University of York (Ronald Storrs) Gifted by Sir Rupert Hart-Davies

Thank you to all the libraries that took the time to reply to my enquiries to check numbers and dedications etc.

While looking on Peter Lorenz’s excellent site I noticed he had some Greek James Bond covers that looked vaguely familiar. He put me in touch with a Greek James Bond fan, Anagnostis Karras. I was very surprised when Anagnostis said he had a spare copy of one of the titles and would I like it? The book as I’m sure you can all work out is ‘Colonel Sun’ as the Kingsley Amis is a bit of a give away but some of the others are very much more PAN look alikes. The publishing company is Squirrel hence the logo and has a list of titles by George Simenon, Agatha Christie, Peter Cheyney, Leslie Charteris and Patrick Quentin again all authors also published by PAN.
       

Back in March I mentioned the PAN Books Despatch Centre in West Molesey (1956 to 1961) and that the building is still there, Since then I’ve discovered that it then moved to Edenbriidge (1961 to 1964) before going to Basingstoke. The building in Edenbridge is still there and I hope to call in at the end of the month.

This blog is about a great piece of ephemera namely the  original contract between John Burke and Clarence Padget (Director on behalf of PAN) for him to write and for them to publish the book to accompany the film of “The Man Who Finally Died” I’ve added the contract to the page for G614 and also included the original cover artwork by Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer who signed my copy of the book. Clarence Padget, on Herbert Van Thal’s death, edited the PAN Book Of Horror Stories series from volume twenty-six until its demise with volume thirty in 1989.

While sorting through some PAN related bits and pieces I came across the last will and testament of Ralph Holmes Vernon-Hunt (as you do) in which he leaves all to his wife or in the event of his wife predeceasing him, his children. Included with this was the letter to the right on PAN Books headed notepaper because at the time he was Sales Director who later became the Managing Director but he is more famous for another reason.
He was the model for the James Bond found on the covers of several titles from the early 1960’s. He even appears on one cover when he shouldn’t! Click here to find out which one has the mistake.

Ralph Holmes Vernon-Hunt May 23rd 1923 > Nov 10th 1987
Sales Director PAN Books 1947 > 1962 & 1969 > 1982
Nephew of Alan John Bott > Founder of PAN Books

Finally I was out walking a long distance footpath over the last couple of days some of which included the towpath of the Staffs and Worcs Canal. One of the moored narrow boats had a couple of boxes of paperbacks  by it. They were 10p each and in one was, at a quick look, a complete set of James Bond PANs from the 60’s. I was very tempted but as I was only 15 miles into the 41 I had to cover I regrettably decided not to this time which was probably a sensible decision.

Bazeer Flumore sent me the following photographs after he visited a bookfair in Clunes, Australia. Clunes has just become the first  Australia booktown so I hope if does better than Atherstone booktown here in the UK which seems to be no more. Bazeer runs the excellent Piz Gloria website for those aficionados of James Bond book covers and while he was looking to enlarge his collection he was also looking for my last three wants but I think failed on both counts.

Here are a few photos of what we missed including a few of those boxes we love to look through hoping to find that one title the dealer missed but ……….