I was delighted to receive an email from artist Martin Baker, having recently made up a page of the ‘foxtail’ series of Agatha Christe titles published by Fontana, with the majority featuring his wonderful artwork on the covers. Of the sixty nine covers I know of in this series (not including the biography) Martin painted sixty six of them with the other three having artwork by Tom Adams from a previous series. It was good to have Martin confirm that the ones I had not attributed to him were his, covers were I couldn’t spot the tell tale MB. Martin also confirmed he was the author of ‘Artist of Radio Times’ which I had queried. Martin was also kind enough to say “I’m attach a couple of pages from an autobiography rehearsing my Christie covers. This isn’t an egregiously self-regarding work – I’ve had a colourful life, and was asked to record it!” Click HERE to read the pages. I think I might have been tempted to buy some of those socks as they also show PAN covers. Here are a couple more of Martin’s books and I’m really pleased to say “Thank you” as he has signed and gifted a copy of ‘Rhymes with Berti’ to our grandson, I’m sure he’ll love it.
When I made a page of John D MacDonald’s ‘Travis McGee’ covers I thought I must have them all but no, up pops another one which I’ve added to the page. It is namely ‘A Deadly Shade of Gold’ from 1974. Which, as usual, begs the question “How many more are out there that I haven’t got?”
This weeks three editions of the same title with the same artwork but with a different house style is for PAN 100 ‘The Lost World’ by Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. They span the years 1949 to 1952 and are all UK printings by Hazel, Watson and Viney Ltd. Frustratingly I have yet to find the cover artist as there is no signature or initials to be seen.