I meant to mention this a while ago but other things came along. I managed to eventually visit the pop up bookshop in Wolverhampton, which finished last week, and sorry to say I was very disappointed this time. When it first started there were several tables with vintage paperbacks but now it’s just the odd 1970 PAN or older Penguins. It appeared to be mainly modern popular authors in paperback which I might pick up to read from our library but not to buy but I suppose they know what sells.

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I was pleased to hear from fellow PAN Fan Joe Mclaughlin who drew my attention to an album by Dave Graney, who I will confess was a new name to me. The cover is a sort of pastiche of PAN G551/X239 “For Your Eyes Only” with artwork by J Oval (Ben Ostrick) The album cover is by what looks like T Mahoney in the signature.

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While looking at Australian authors I was intrigued to come across Gabrielle Lord who wrote a series of titles that reminded me of Sue Grafton. Sue sadly only managed to write 25 books for letters of the alphabet detective stories. Gabrielle has written 12 teen titles for each month of the year none of which were published by PAN. I have only found two of her titles published by PAN out of her 35 books but I’ll keep looking. Lord was born in Sydney in 1946 and worked as a teacher before becoming a full time writer.

I recently picked up this poster for the Robert Silverberg titles published by PAN with artwork by Josh Kirby. I will try and get a better image of it as it was too big for my scanner as it measures 27″ x 17″ I have resorted to a photo as it  it was rolled up and kept wanting to roll back so it’s under a rug hopefully being flattened at the moment. The photo is taken of it under a sheet of glass. I’ve scanned in the six editions of the three titles in the Silverberg Majipoor Chronicles series with the Kirby artwork. Pleased to find Robert Silverberg is still with us being born on the 15th January 1935 in New York.

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Always pleased to add links to another couple of Jules Burt’s videos. This first one is Cleaning Vintage Great Pan Paperbacks – Part 7 and is a great way to see the wonderful artwork on the covers. The second is for a preview of the Paperback and Pulp Book Fair 2023 in London on the 30th July. I hoping to be there if plans to visit the family in Kent at the same time come to fruition. Here is a still from the video, I recognise Jules but who can that handsome hirsute gentleman be ……..?

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Still sorting Jackie Collins editions and found yet another signed copy of ‘Lovers & Gamblers’ this time to Louise but no further clues as to who she might, did she work at PAN like the others?

As it would have been Rona Jaffe’s birthday on the 12th June I’ve rescanned in all her PAN editions that I know of. This includes X81 and X80, the first printing of which was incorrectly numbered. Jaffe wrote 17 books of which PAN published 4. She was born in 1931 in New York City and died in London on the 30th December 2005. Jaffe wrote her first book ‘The Best of Everything‘ in 1958 while working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications. It was adapted into a film starring Joan Crawford also called ‘The Best of Everything’ in 1959

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I’m always pleased to get comment’s on blogs and especially the latest one regarding James E McConnell. Steve Chibnall’s book on McConnell is now available to pre-order from Telos Publishing. It’s thanks to ‘down.thetubes.net’ for letting me know and for the links from their article to my website.. Talking of McConnell does anyone know if he also painted the cover of the Heinemann edition of ‘Bony and the Black Virgin’ as it is so similar to his later PAN edition?

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When I saw some original book cover artwork I couldn’t resist even thought it was for Hodder and not PAN. It was for the 1958 edition of ‘Polonaise’ by Doris Leslie signed ‘Leonard’ and on the back it said D Michael Leonard. I emailed Viv Lawrence who looks after Michael’s website and he kindly replied with the good news to say “Yes, this is a very early Michael Leonard commercial work. I recognise the signature which is how he signed his work at that time. D M Leonard is Douglas Michael Leonard always know as Michael. He would have just left St Martin’s School of Art aged 25. He is still with us but in a care home now being well looked after”

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Thanks to fellow PAN Fan Stuart Radmore from Upfield’s adopted country for spotting a couple of errors on my Arthur Upfield page featured in a recent blog. He notice I had included a duplicate edition which has now been removed and also I had not included X716. On looking for it on the shelf I also found I had not included X717 so now both added, thanks Stuart.

I’m still sorting the different editions of Jackie Collins (currently by typeface for her name) and notice at least two were signed. One is to Celeste who was Celeste Parsons and worked at PAN while the other is to Steve (?) who was a ‘rep supreme’ apparently. Click HERE to see them.

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Looking at ‘The Five Great Novels of James M Cain’ published by PAN as a Picador I checked if PAN had published all five titles separately as I couldn’t remember seeing ‘Mildred Pierce’ on the shelf. It seems my memory was correct so to make up for its absence I’ve scanned in my three US Penguin copies of the title although not in the best of condition. I’ve also included the Guild Books edition of ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ as Guild Books was another of Alan Botts companies. Cain wrote over 20 novels plus short stories and plays. James Mallahan Cain was born on the 1st July 1892 in Annapolis, Maryland and died on the 27th October 1977 at University Park, Maryland. Click HERE to see the covers.

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At the time of the coronation of King Charles III last month I scanned in some titles with a vague royal connection and now realise there was another one I had missed so better late than never I’ve added ‘The Reality of Monarchy’ by Andrew Duncan from 1970. Dipping into it I don’t think it will be joining my ‘to read’ pile anytime soon!