I recently heard from fellow PAN Fan, Gareth Brown, who sent me some photos of the original artwork he has plus a fantastic rotary book stand, me jealous, not half! He said “I lost a number of books in a flood years ago and I’ve not been the in-depth collector over the years, this was mainly in the 70s/80s. But I went to see the Art Director at Pan when I was a teenager to express my fandom and he very kindly gave me these”
The covers Gareth got were for ‘The Eighth Mrs Bluebeard’, ‘Lucy Crown’, ‘The Case of the Hesitant Heiress’, ‘Deep Water’ and ‘Holiday for Inspector West’
On the 20th March there was a auction of several lots of books including PANs and Penguins at Warren and Wignall, Auctioneers, in Leyland, Lancashire. The auction was also the online via “The Saleroom’ website. The three PAN lots were as follows;
1) Pan Books, a large collection of the first numbered series, 1 – 443, (missing numbers 164, 182, 191-197, 210, 213, 241, 251, 253, 271, 297, 301, 341 & 392), also including six of the first un-numbered editions. These sold for £2,100
2) Pan Books, a collection of mainly assorted G series paperbacks, 1958 to 1966, various authors including Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie etc. including a small number of the first numbered series, 1947-1958, approximately 142 in total. All of the Ian Fleming books appear to be first Pan Books editions, one of the Agatha Christie books is also first Pan Books edition, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is first Pan Books 6th printing. These sold for £300
3) Pan Books, a near complete collection of GP series paperbacks, 1-102, 1947 to 1958, (missing GP11, GP31 & GP101), various authors including Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie etc. includes some duplicates. These sold for £200
To the prices you needed to add 25% commission if you were in the room and another 8% on top if by phone or online. What about VAT? They do not ship so I suppose you had to go and collect them in person. If those are the going rates then even if I sold all my books I don’t think I’d make enough for that Round the World cruise!
Having picked up another copy of ‘Lust for Innocence’ by Dianne Doubtfire I was amazed to find it was an unsigned copy. I have three more copies of this title, all signed, plus ‘Reason for Violence’, signed and at least another four of her children’s books all signed. To find one unsigned seems to be the exception to the rule. Oddly I had not noticed that one copy of ‘Lust for Innocence’ and the ‘Reason for Violence’ are both to the same person but I don’t remember buying them at the same time. I’m wondering if the copy of ‘Lust for Innocence’ to Andrea might be Andrea Newman as they were both writing around the same time? Dianne Joan Doubtfire was born in Leeds, Yorkshire on 18th October 1918 and attended Harrogate Grammar School and Slade College of Art. She became a lecturer and tutor in creative writing and twice chaired the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School plus writing a play for the BBC. She married an artist-engraver (Graham Channon?) and they lived on the Isle of Wight where she set up the ‘Wight Writers’ Dianne died in West Sussex in May 2000. PAN also published two more of her novels namely X565 ‘Kick a Tin Can’ and ‘The Flesh is Strong’