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

Monthly Archives: February 2018

More from Robin, a couple of covers and another from George.

As promised last week here are more pages from the film exhibitors campaign books I scanned from photocopies Robin Harbour had from Anthony Southall.
There are several large pages that all mention PAN Books. They may load slowly but they can be found HERE.

Again while sorting I’m left pondering “Was it really worth it?” when I see covers a couple of years apart looking very similar. They were both for ‘The Spy Who Came In From The Cold’ one from 1974 and the other 1979. All I can think is that the 1979 edition was designed to look like the other Carre covers with the stylised name.

….. and yet another cover from prolific artist George Sharp which I’ve emailed to him as he says he can’t remember a lot of them but they bring back memories of the time. This is another Morrell cover from 1979. I’m awaiting his response.

A Visit from Robin plus another PAN/Ballantine

I was really pleased to get an email from James Bond aficionado Robin Harbour to say he had just acquired the exhibitors campaign book for ‘You Only Live Twice’ and as it mentioned the PAN edition published to coincide with the film release, was I interested? As it was A3 and Robin doesn’t have a scanner big enough he offered to pop round with it and luckily he doesn’t live that far away.

One of the pages not only shows the book but also extra display pieces. To see them click HERE. The photo of the rocket was one Graham Rye of “007 Magazine” sent me a while back while the other two are from Nick Bennetts collection. Over the page were details of a competion run by W H Smith for window displays, the accompanying photo was a mock up showing all the bits being used. To see previously shown displays click HERE.

I’m always on the look out for PAN/Ballantine joint publications and have now got another one to add to the list. It is “The Basic Book of Organic Farming” with a cover by David Larkin who was art director at PAN at the time.

   
While Robin was here he also brought photocopies of other campaign books featuring PAN’s which he got from Anthony Southall. I’ve scanned them in and although the quality is not as good as they would be straight from the originals I’ll shown them next week.

…. and finally the answer to last weeks puzzle was less than a centimetre.

William Goldman, a signed copy by Alexander Cordell and a puzzle.

While looking at images of PAN books I spotted a copy of “The Princess Bride by William Goldman I’d not see before. I thought this would be easy to get but was surprised at the price someone wanted on AbeBooks.After another search I found this on Amazon ……
…… but in the end I got a copy for the penny plus postage from Amazon. What I always wonder is “Does anyone really buy books at the over the top prices?”

I was pleased to see PAN had included the name of the artist for “The Princess Bride” and it was a familiar one, Brian Sanders. I emailed him and he replied:
“Another blast from the past. Thank you. Yes I certainly remember making the artwork commissioned by Dave Larkin for Princess Bride, although it was in another life, when I lived in the lower reaches of Highgate. The young lady who modelled for me was the daughter of a neighbour. They lived less than fifty yards away. Warren Michel and family were in between; before he made it big time and moved up to Bishop’s Avenue. Forty years on the child princess bride must be in her late 50s”
Click HERE to see this and other Goldman covers from PAN.

I also picked up a signed copy of “Rape of the Fair Country” by Alexander Cordell and then spent the next half hour looking at his signature in other books and I think it could be a genuine one. Click HERE to see it and the original artwork from one of my favourite cover artists, Hans Helweg.

Not PAN but book related. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme has a ‘Puzzle of the Day’ and here’s the one from last Friday which I got wrong – again!
“I have an encyclopaedia of animals on my shelf, which comes in two volumes. On the left is the Aardvark to Lynx volume, and next to it on the right is the volume for Mackerel to Zebra. Each volume is 5cm thick. The covers are 2mm thick. I have bookmarked two pages, Aardvark and Zebra. How far apart would you say the two bookmarks are, to the nearest centimetre?”
Answer next week.

Found them, plus RIP Peter Wyngarde and another ‘As seen on TV’

Not sure our few days away were that restful with the gale force winds and rain but on the plus side it did get to 15 degrees, not bad for this time of year.

I found the books I’d put on one side but I’m still one and possibly two to find to go on the shelves. The title was ‘Tim’ by Colleen McCullough and I’ve got five examples plus one that only seems to be show as ‘Stock photo’ but I suppose it exists? The other is one that I’m sure I have somewhere that I was sent as a review copy when I worked in Special Ed. In my mind it was just a plain yellow cover with the writing in white but after forty years it might just be a figment of my imagination. See the covers HERE

I know it is a bit morbid but I do look at obituaries, hence spotting Peter Mayle on the 18th January but I missed the passing of Peter Wyngarde three days earlier. I think most people will remember him from his role as ‘Jason King’ and PAN published two titles featuring King. They were written by Robert Miall AKA John Burke who received £525 for each of them for the first 40,000 titles. Click HERE to see the covers and contracts.

 

….. and finally another screen capture for the ‘PAN as seen on TV’ page with a copy of ‘For Your Eyes Only’ appearing on Bargain Hunt where all the latest captures seen to have come from.