Recently on eBay there was an auction for some original Pat Owen paintings of Andy Murray playing in November 2016 at the O2 arena in London when he beat Marin Cilic in the ATP World Tour finals. I wasn’t sure about bidding as nothing really related to PAN apart from Pat also painted many covers for PAN but at the price they were very cheap. There were three which became four and arrived the day after the auction ended. They are signed on the front and on the back and must be amongst some of Pats last work as he died in 2017. It turned out it was Pat’s brother-in-law that was selling them.

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This weeks same number two covers is for PAN G148 ‘God’s Little Acre’ by Erskine Caldwell from 1958 and 1960. I suspect the 1958  one is by Hans Helweg although not signed while the 1960 one clearly is and for which he got paid £42. It doesn’t follow the usual pattern in that the film tie-in cover came first and the later doesn’t mention it on the front but has the same back cover as the earlier with a film still. I prefer the 1960 cover but I might be biased as the original artwork is hanging on my wall. My copy is also signed by Erskine Caldwell. The 1963 cover, X323, is also by Helweg and for this ‘re do’ he got paid £50 16s.

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Sometimes when I’m looking at the asking price for a book on eBay I’m left wondering if it is genuine or a typing error as in this example.

This is not a rare title and many copies can be found for a fraction of that price. PAN published two editions, X101 from 1961 with a cover by William Francis Phillipps and 0330 241001 in 1974.
STOP PRESS Since I mentioned this I have had an email to say the price has been reduced by ….. £384.99!

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Don’t ask ChatGPT to make a picture of a long haired black cat like our Hecate reading a PAN copy of ‘Casino Royale’ on her birthday if you don’t want to be disappointed. It couldn’t even spell ‘Casino’ right! Mind you I didn’t tell it she only has three legs with one of her front ones missing but it’s got her eyes right with one darker than the other, pity it’s not the same on both images.

The artwork I successfully bid on at auction eventually arrived and while looking at the roughs for covers I don’t think were ever used the address on the label sounded familiar. Straight to Google for a search and it came up with the reason why. It was on the news as Banksy recently painted a couple of elephants on the end of a building and it was on number 10 right next door to 9. Click HERE to see the Banksy and also the rough and if anyone has any idea if it was actually used pleased let me know.

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I was hoping to make it a trio of Nobel Prize for Literature winning authors in Picador last week but could only think of Steinbeck (1962) and Hemingway (1954) and they were published as PANs. Since then I’ve Googled to see a list of winners and I found I had forgotten all about Gabriel Garcia Marquez which was an oversight as at least three covers proclaim the win on their front covers. Four of the covers are by artist Gary McAvers and all I can find out about him was that he is American.  If I made a blog just about winners published as PANs I should also include Rudyard Kipling (1907), William Butler Yeats (1923) and Pearl Buck (1938)

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This weeks two covers with the same number very close together date wise is for PAN 335 ‘The Trojan Horse’ by (Ralph) Hammond Innes (1914-1998) The 1955 edition has artwork by Barrow while the 1957 has it by Graham R Barkley. I can’t see if there was any reason for a change such as film tie-in but I think I prefer the later version although I believe there is a chase in the sewers of London. I may have to read the book to see which is most faithful to the story line.

PAN published several of the works of 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature winning author Hermann Hesse (1877 to 1962) “for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style” Most of the PAN covers were painted by Peter Le Vasseur apart from one by George Sharp and a photo by Peter Williams. I contacted Peter who kindly emailed back to say:

“Hi Tim, I started doing book covers when a friend asked me to do one in the 60’s.After that I did covers for a number of companies through and agent in Soho, the company was called Artist’s Partners. I came in contact with Pan through AP in the 1970’s. I did covers for their imprint Picador because they did more arty/poetic books, hence doing the covers for Hermann Hesse’s books. Hermann Hesse’s work was going through a bit of a revival at that time. Picador were very good in that they gave me a huge amount of freedom to interpret the author’s work. All the original art work was sold, most of it through the Portal Gallery, who showed my work around that time. Others sold in Guernsey where I live. One or two of the images are in the book about me, which was published by Lutterworth Press a couple of years ago. It’s called ‘A Brush with Life’ and was written by Jason Monaghan. I hope that helps a bit, come back to me if you need anything more and i will see if I can help”
I have a copy of Peter’s book which is a very informative read and features the art work for three of his Picador covers and lists others but misses out ‘Rosshalde’. Peter also painted the cover for the Picador 1980 edition of ‘The Track to Bragula’ by B. Wonger

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The second Nobel Prize for Literature author is Knut Hamsun (1859 to 1952) who won his in 1920. Again PAN published several of his titles with most of the covers by Paul Leith although oddly again one of them is by George Sharp plus another by Bee Willey. I have emailed Paul but so far no reply. His website states “Paul Leith is a British illustrator, artist and graduate from The Royal College of Art. Paul’s work covers decades of colourful creativity; producing murals, felt artworks, sketches and commercial illustration. His experience is reflected in his high profile client list which includes Royal Mail, Penguin Books, The Sunday Times, The Body Shop, W H Smiths and Virgin Trains to name a few. Paul is currently working on a variety of creative projects and is based in Carlisle, Cumbria”

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This might just be me but sometimes I look at a cover and go ‘What the …..?’ I am now offering the Picador edition of ‘Waterland’ by Graham Swift from 1984 as my ‘What the ……?’ of this week.

I found out about some of pieces of original PAN artwork coming up for sale at couple of auction houses and thought I would give them a punt. One I had known about for quite a while as Mark at Sworders had asked me if I could identify the artist which I could as it was Hans Helweg. It was for the later edition of ‘Sweet Thursday’ by John Steinbeck. I thought I had bid a reasonable amount but in the end it went well above that at £380. The second low was for Eric Tenney’s artwork for ‘The Stone Leopard’ by Colin Forbes at Tooveys. I wasn’t that bothered about it so I didn’t bid that high but what I hadn’t noticed was that it also included the artwork for ‘Path Into the Unknown: The Best of Soviet S. F.’ with a cover by W F Phillips. This went for £110 and Stuart Webb was the successful bidder. The third lot was something I really regret missing as I didn’t read all the details. It appeared to be a collection of artwork for children’s books but also included paintings by Roger Hall for three covers in the ‘PAN Romance Series’. It went for £130 and again Stuart was the lucky bidder. So we come to the one high which was for ‘Find A Victim’ by John Ross Macdonald with a cover by Stephen Richard Boldero. I probably got carried away and bid too high to win it at £300. On the plus side it also came with several other artworks including two paintings for a couple of covers for published hardbacks and some roughs. Thanks to Stuart for the photographs of his winning lots and permission for me to include them on the appropriate pages.

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There was a very optimistic seller on eBay offering a home bound copy of the PAN 22nd printing of ‘Moonraker’ from 1965 as a hardback.

I was pleased to hear from John Mott who told me his uncle, the actor Frank Ellement, was used by Sam Peffer as the face of James Lessiter on the cover of G122 ‘Miss Silver Comes to Stay’ John wrote “Frank was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1928 and died in London, England in 1998. He moved to the UK in his early 20’s. He was an aspiring opera singer and did quite a bit of modelling and bit part acting to make ends meet. There is an entry for him at IMDB. He eventually settled into life as a school teacher. He was also for some time the lover of journalist Patrick Thursfield (1923-2003) His younger sister (my aunt) passed away in Ottawa a few years ago, and I inherited Frank’s portfolio scrap books. These had been sent to my aunt by Patrick Thursfield, in his capacity as Frank’s executor. A small advertisement for the Patricia Wentworth paperback was clipped and pasted into the scrapbook, along with many other magazine and newspaper clippings featuring my uncle. This small clipping is very likely the only piece of surviving evidence that links my uncle to Sam Peffer. I am attaching a professional headshot of my uncle from that time, that most closely approximates the art. Until visiting your website, I had always imagined that my uncle had posed for the painting. It now seems quite possible that Sam never actually met my uncle, but simply painted the face from a headshot” At one time Frank was considered for the role of James Bond. I contacted Kathy, Sam’s great niece, to see if she knew the name but she emailed back to say “Just a quick one to let you know that I have never heard Frank Ellement’s name mentioned or seen it written as a contact in an address book, but so pleased to have received your link as I don’t remember seeing that cover before. I see it is 1958, the year I was born. Definitely uncle Sam modelling in the photos, it is in the sitting room of 13 Stonenest Street, Finsbury Park (my childhood home with Kit and Sam). The curtains are claret red and the carpet is black with yellow scrolls. The desk furniture is their dressing table, and the chair is from their dining room suite which had a mustard/grey mottled vinyl seat. The black telephone on the desk was their home phone and the number was ‘Archway 6040’ The green phone in ‘Please Don’t Eat the Daisies’ with Doris Day/David Niven, was also their home phone from 1964 to the 1980s in Finchley was ‘Hillside 9989’!“

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While sorting out my Picador titles I found I had two copies of ‘Roots’ by Alex Haley, neither of which are firsts.  I thought it would be easy to find a copy but I was wrong. This is probably because it wasn’t the success it became after the TV series so later copies are the ones ‘flashed’ in some way. I was interested to find in one of my copies a lot of faded newspaper clippings purporting to say a lot of the book was plagerised and fabricated, this being discovered in Haley’s private papers after his death. Click HERE to see one of the articles from ‘The Times’

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This weeks short lived cover is for  X375 ‘Claudelle’ by Erskine Caldwell. The 1960 cover by Hans Helweg, for which he got paid £42, was replaced in 1961 by a Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer cover as a film tie-in. The 1960 cover mentions a film coming shortly so probably prophesising is own demise. While the original artwork from Sam correctly names the film released as  ‘Claudelle Inglish’ the printed cover has it as ‘Jilted’, the name used for the film in Australia amongst other countries. I much prefer Hans version and my copy of the book looks and feels as though it has never been read.