I have posted several pages of Agatha Christie series covers from PAN in the past (‘Double Dagger‘, ‘White Top‘, ‘All Photo‘) but Fontana also published her titles with the most well know probably being with covers by Tom Adams. Not so common are those with covers mainly by Martin Baker called ‘the foxtail series’ because of the ‘g’ For no real reason I find I have amassed quite a few of these editions so for a change this week I’m including these covers just because I like most of them apart from the biography which spoils the set by having a photo and is B format unlike the others which are A format. I don’t think Martin painted any for PAN but Tom Adams did so I’m using that as my spurious link. If you know of any I don’t have, as a sad old completest can I ask please email details me. I can’t find out much about Martin Baker, was he the same Martin who wrote ‘Artists of the Radio Times’?
‘The Dragon’ by Alfred Coppel is a problem in that there were two versions of the cover but the date/printing information inside is identical as PAN seems to be using the same text block . The only way I can guess which is the oldest is by looking at the price. The earlier one uses the same Alun Hood artwork as the Macmillan hardback while the later is by David Bergen. Alfred Coppel was born Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel (09/11/1921 – 30/05/2004) in America. He wrote several science fiction short stories and thirty one books of which PAN published just one more namely ’34 East’
I’m always on the look out for reading, proof or reviews copies of PAN titles as they are usually a little different from the published edition. This time it’s an ‘Special Advance Reading Copy’ no less for ‘The Sisters’ by Robert Littell from 1987. Inside it says there was going to be a major PAN promotion but so far I’ve not found anything that could be related to a campaign for this title. It is different in that the PAN logo is at the top of the spine. Robert Littell had written seven novels by the time PAN published this one but it wasn’t until the 2000’s that they published any more of his books.