Having been away for most of last week I’ve only got a couple of things with the first being another page of Gavin Lyall covers. Colin Thomas (see last blog) was the photographer for at least one of them along with Derek Askem and Andy Whale. I’ve written to a Derek Askem but might not have the right one, no response so far. I emailed Andy with my usual “I hope I’ve got the right person and if “Yes” have you got any recollections of working for PAN?” and he replied “Yes I had got the right person and how could he help?” I again repeated my question but still awaiting a reply. The later covers are HERE

There was a lot in the news about Burt Reynolds dying on September 6th but nothing about Liz Fraser who was in so many films from my youth – and a few from later such as the ‘Confessions’ series which I have to ‘confess’ to having on DVD. She was said to be “best known for her comedy roles as a provocative “dumb blonde” in British films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s” This still from the film ‘I’m All Right Jack’ with Liz Fraser and Ian Carmichael was used by Glenn Steward who painted the cover for the PAN film tie-in for G319 from 1959. Liz also appeared in ‘The Americanization of Emily’ with the film tie-in edition being a second printing from PAN as G490 from 1964.

Sorting through the different series of covers of Gavin Lyall titles I have scanned in the ones from the early 80’s which feature guns. I noticed that several were credited to photographer Colin Thomas and I’ve put them on a page HERE. Although not all having a name I’ve taken the liberty of crediting them all to him but I’ll change it if I find it’s any different. Colin photo’s were used on many PAN covers for authors  including Dick Francis, Ed McBain, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter, Jack Higgins and what has been a bit of a mystery up to now, the 18th PAN Book of Horror Stories. More on these in a later blog.

I contacted Colin and he very kindly replied;

Dear Tim
Thanks for your email, you have got the right Colin Thomas. I did my first cover for PAN with David Larkin in 1977 (18th Pan Book of Horror Stories)
I subsequently did lots of covers for David, and for his successor Gary Day-Ellison, and in a way I still work for Pan Books today if you can call the imprint at Pan Macmillan the same company.
So I’m afraid I do belong to the group of photographers who, commissioned by Larkin and Day-Ellison brought about what you describe: “photography began to play an increasingly dominant part, and the special period charm of the artwork covers of the previous twenty years was lost”.
Amongst many other commissions, I did a series of covers for Ed McBain titles, and for Dick Francis titles, where we tried to go for a minimalist look that we hoped had ZERO period charm!
I still shoot for book covers today, although the industry has changed dramatically from the way it was in 1970’s and 80’s. Anyway, I’m attaching a few more covers from that period that I’m still proud of.
Regards,
Colin Thomas

Just looking up Gavin Lyall I think he was born a stones throw from Cadbury’s at 139, Cob Lane in Birmingham in May 1932 and which is just a few miles from me but needs a check as his parents seemed to have moved around the area a lot. Returning to the ‘gun’ covers I’m trying to see if they did one for ‘Venus With Pistol’ which would seem appropriate but the problem is that the ones in the later series as below appear to use the same book block so the same dates. This doesn’t help trying to track them down!
I don’t remember the TV version of ‘The Secret Servant’ as stickered on the cover of one of my copies which was a BBC production from 1984 starring Charles dance as Henry Maxim.

..………… and finally the painting of the artist I featured last week was a self portrait of Hans Helweg from 1998 when he was 81.

I recently contacted cover artist Peter Gudynas to ask if he did more than one cover for PAN as I’d only found ‘The Second Trip’ by Robert Silverberg crediting him. He sent me a very detailed response and the answer was basically ‘Yes’ although he did paint a couple of covers for the PAN related US imprint TOR Books in their ‘doubles’ series.

Peter also including a scan of the original artwork plus a printers proof. He said:

“I worked as a science fiction artist for many years during the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I produced many covers and received recognition in the UK, USA, Germany and France for my Science Fiction art. This has included commissioned book cover design and illustration artwork beginning in the late 1970’s, through the 80’s and 90’s, for world renowned publishers including Penguin Books, Panther Books, Harper Collins, New English Library, Pan Books, Daw Books, Bantam Books and Tor Books, amongst many. Credits include cover art for authors such as J.G.Ballard, Philip K Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Rudy Rucker, John Sladek, Bruce Sterling, Frederik Pohl, Robert Sheckley, Harry Harrison, Issac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Pat Cadigan and Mick Farren, to name a few. In 1999 I won the Waterstones Booksellers award for best book cover artwork for the novel Diaspora by Greg Egan, at the Association of Illustrators Images 23 Best of British Illustration exhibition, held at Royal College of Art London”

Funnily enough Peter only lives a few miles away from me so I feel a trip over to get a signature may be called for.

I have added another Peter Corris title but not a Cliff Hardy novel, a book called ‘Golf’ which unsurprisingly is a selection of poems, stories etc about golf. I think it takes the prize for worst cover of the month but having looked at other work by Ann Howie I glad to see this isn’t a representative example, some of her landscapes are very evocative.

I’ve also added some more of the ‘Bony’ covers by Marinella Bonini but no response to my email to her so far but maybe using Google translate into Italian didn’t quite do it!

…. and finally here is a self portrait of a prolific PAN cover artist, anyone know who it is? Answer next week.

Last week I had several emails that I need to follow up and should provide great material for later blogs including tracking down Sue, the widow of Hans Helweg.

Back in October last year I had an email from journalist Stuart Webb who was looking to write an article with a PAN slant. He asked several questions and looking back I’m not sure how many, if any, I actually answered but that hasn’t stopped him writing a very informative piece about someone, whom I feel I should have known but didn’t, Louis Shabner.
A couple of weeks ago Stuart contacted me again to say his article had been published and in his excellent piece  explains Louis will probably be better know to PAN Fans as cover artist  ‘SHELDON’ and not to be confused with another PAN cover artist H. Harry Sheldon.  Louis, as Sheldon, painted at least 23 covers for PAN in the early 60’s, 21 of which are shown in the article which appears in ‘VE’ magazine Issue 41 and can be purchased on line at their website www.vintagexplorer.co.uk

The article gives a detailed account of his life and features several other evocative examples of Shabner’s work. It tells how the family tried to sell some of the originals back in 2017 using on line sites and an auction house with mixed results. The family are left with 17 they are going to keep. Stuart finishes by asks where others works may be and I’m wondering how many other PAN covers Louis may have painted that are unattributed? As usual if anyone can help by adding further information please let us know.

I experienced one of those weird coincidences while I was typing this as I got an email from Gordon Young whom I’ve mentioned before and who now lives in Milford on Sea. Gordon was emailing to say he had just heard that George Bath, who joined PAN the year he left in 1964, was now actually living a half a mile away! Seems like Milford was and is a popular place with the publishing trade as I’m sure the name has come up before.

…. and finally “HOW MUCH!!!!!”

To celebrate ‘Ekka Day’ in Brisbane on Wednesday all the books mentioned today have an Australian connection.

Having heard from Ray down under  regarding a variant of a ‘Dam Busters’ cover he emailed again to let me know of another ‘Young Lions’ a later edition which so far I’ve only found for certain on Gumtree in South Africa. Many sellers list an edition as 1981 but then say something like they have 5 copies available so it’s always pot luck. Thankfully Ray sent me a scan so I’ve included that at the moment. I think it’s interesting how the title and author have switched, the former becoming subservient to the latter (Still wondering what happened to the soldier on the left?)

While asking about Corris titles Stuart sent me his cover scans plus a list of other PAN titles published in Australia from the back of ‘White Meat’ I’ve decided my challenge is to get them all and so far the total is three. I have to say I had real trouble trying to even find an image of ‘Coins for the Ferryman’ just to put on as a place holder but then struck lucky and got a copy from S.A. What a disappointment, no wonder nobody bother to scan it before!

As I mentioned last week we have been out and about in the camper dropping off books at NT second hand book shops but that didn’t preclude me buying  a few, the rule is no more than we leave. I managed to pick up a couple of Arthur Upfields I hadn’t got and it turned out they were the Australian printings with covers by Marinella Bonini. I have found a lady of that name in Italy so I think an email is called for.

Last but by no means least I am still rescanning the whole collection and am now up to ……… PAN 13, well these things can’t be rushed. I have three different editions and it was while just checking for the printer I noticed my 1948 edition has a booksellers stamp in it. This is form “Dymock’s Book Arcade, George Steet, Sidney’ which I’m pleased to see has been there since 1879, and is still there, 139 years later.

We spent the last few days travelling in our camper around National Trust properties with second hand book shops dropping off books. They are more than happy to receive ones that are actually more than two years old and not just fiction paperbacks unlike charity shops. It took two days and four visits before we could begin to move around  the camper without having to shift boxes every time. We eventually visited seven properties (and not one PAN spotted on a shelf to add to the ‘As seen in a NT property’  section) finishing up at Baddesley Clinton on what was advertised as the first day of their annual weeks book sale. They had been setting up the day before and had been happy to sell and had actually raised £1,200 on that one day while last year it was only £400. The total last year was well over £50,000 so who knows what it might be this year but at least £11 of it will be mine!

Having shown some of the E V Thompson titles with covers by Cecil Viewig I picked up  ‘Becky‘ but with a cover by Gwyneth Jones. This cost me all of 50p and I was even more pleased to find it was signed by the author.

I also picked up another version of the Mollie Hunter book ‘The Ghosts of Glencoe’ with an unattributed cover but again pleasantly surprised to find it signed by the author although this one cost me a whole £1.

I also found a reference to a Geoff Taylor cover on his website he did for a Mollie Hunter title that implied it might never have been used but I managed to find it had and although not Piccolo but Fontana Lions I’ve added it to both the Geoff Taylor and Mollie Hunter pages.

I also heard from Ray in Australia last week but I’m going to hold fire on that until next week where hopefully it will tie in with another couple of items.

Having mentioned the artwork I bought from Geoff Taylor recently I’ve added this and a cover he did for Piccolo to his page HERE. I’m getting the artwork framed so I’ll put better photos on then. Geoff also authored a couple of books and I’ve added a scan of one but the other I’ve bought hasn’t arrived yet so it’s from the web. This one cost me £4.99 although a few sellers were asking a bit more!

Geoff did the cover for a reprint of ‘A Pistol in Greenyards’ by Mollie Hunter and he says the figure on the cover was a self portrait. I’ve got various copies of all the other titles by Hunter that PAN published under the Piccolo imprint.The majority are by Gene or Jene Hawkins as both names are mentioned and I’m presuming they are the same person. You can see them HERE. Not sure why there are two versions of ‘The Stronghold’ when they are so similar, just the change of font and style? Jene Hawkins did the Piccolo cover for ‘Kings and Queens’ but apart from that I can find very few other examples, just this record sleeve.

I did contact Ivan Lapper who painted the cover for ‘The Ghosts of Glencoe’ and he replied “I did some book jackets for Pan years ago. It was such a long time ago I haven’t got a record of what I did any more” which is quite understandable.

Having mentioned Peter Corris and his private eye books I bought the PAN edition under their Picador imprint called ‘A Cliff Hardy Collection’ of his three novels PAN published separately. I am currently half way through and they are an enjoyable read and not too taxing for bed time.

I picked up a copy of the campaign book for Irwin Shaw’s novel ‘The Young Lions’ I started to look at how many different edition I had and so far it is seven. I’ve scanned them in plus the most interesting part of the campaign book and put them HERE

I had an email a while ago from Ray Wallace who kindly pointed out that there was an edition of ‘The Dam Busters’ I didn’t have on the page so it was another to add to the ‘must get’ list. Having now got a copy of the 1972 edition with extra printing on the cover and a different ISBN I’ve added it to the page HERE Thanks Ray.

..…. and I knew my Australian agents wouldn’t let me down regarding Peter Corris. I asked if there were other titles by him which had the PAN Man logo and Stuart Radmore emailed back to say there were two and would I like scans? Luckily I found them very competitively priced on Australian eBay and with my sister from here in the UK visiting her daughter in Darwin it looks like cheap postage as well. They will be added at sometime in the future but here are the images from eBay. Thanks Stuart.

This is one for our Australian readers as I picked up a copy of ‘The Dying Trade’ by Peter Corris from 1982 which is an PAN Australian edition. On looking to see if he had any more titles published by PAN I see he has but they all seem to be from the 1990’s so doesn’t have the PAN Man logo (as I’m going to call it) Has anyone got any others of his books without the later ‘waves’ logo?

Still sorting bits and pieces and found I had a hardback copy published by John Long of ‘Gossip to the Grave’ by John Burke from 1967. What is interesting is the comment inside which you can see HERE  and also that he changes from one of his pen names Jonathan to his real name of John.

I’ve also been trying to track down the Sue Grafton ‘Alphabet’ covers for D, E, and F by Tom Adams. I thought I found them but turns out none of them are the right edition although they have the right ISBN and date. What is interesting is that they have the PAN Crime logo on the front of two of them whereas this was just on the spine of the T A ones.Was this one of the new logos from the 1990’s to go with the Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror ones I wonder?

After mentioning the logos that PAN introduced in the 1990’s I came across an advertisement in the ‘Interzone’ magazine which showed three of them. All the books listed below them have the sci-fi logo apart from ‘Heorot’ when I couldn’t find a PAN edition. Click HERE to see them. The advertisement for the magazine was from the back of ‘Grounded’
I always look through books before I pass them on and was pleased to find this newspaper clipping from 1997. I don’t know where I got the book but it is from our local paper, the Express and Star.
I’m a great fan of the work of Tom Adams especially the dozens of Agatha Christie covers he painted for Fontana and the Raymond Chandler covers for Ballantine (I have over a hundred examples of these titles which may one day be scanned) He also did a few for PAN including the three John Fowles titles ‘The Magus’, ‘The Collector’ and ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ and Siverburg’s ‘The Capricorn Games’ After his success with the Christie titles PAN commissioned Tom to paint the covers for the ‘Kinsey Millhome Mysteries’ series by Sue Grafton. He got as far as ‘J’ before he lost rapport with PAN according to the book ‘Tom Adams Uncovered’ I’m trying to complete the A to J set and HERE are the results so far.