While sorting I realised that I had four books in the ‘Venturer Twelve’ series by Dan Morgan and John Kippax. I’d missed number four as it is a solo effort by John Kippax. Just wondering who did the covers and why they didn’t do the last one in the same style but that could just be me. To see them click HERE

I recently spotted a listing on eBay which I had to buy to see if it made sense. It was a hardback copy of ‘Think Of Tomorrow’ by Nicholas Monsarrat published by Hurst and Blackett around 1930.What caught my eye was that it included a compliments slip from PAN as below. No, still doesn’t make sense.It also has a Triolet by Monsarrat on the first page signed ‘Nick’ and dated 16/10/1934
I’m still trying to find a page I had of all the PAN logos from around 1990 when they added an image to go with the genre. I’ve already mention Sci-Fi and Fantasy, here is a badge with the one for horror.….and talking of logos following on from me mentioning books with the PAN and Pavanne logos on the covers I was contacted by Stuart from down under who found another and kindly let me know. Since then I have found two more and I ordered copies of all three, two from the UK and one from the only place I could find it, namely Italy. Guess which of the three has arrived so far! I’ll put them all up hopefully next week.

I was sorry to get a letter from fellow PAN Fan Jeremy Birch to let me know that unfortunately his wife had died suddenly in Italy. I never met Sharon but felt I knew her as Jem always sent me real letters but I replied to him via Sharon’s email address as he didn’t have one. A sad start but as Jem is a true PAN Fan, the latter part was of several PAN related questions I could answer.

I don’t know if it’s me but I can’t say I’d really heard much about Australian author Sumner Lock Elliot (1917-1991) apart from the one title ‘Careful, He Might Hear You’ I had in PAN. I noticed a later title ‘Waiting For Childhood’ by him which was printed in Australia. On looking at other titles I found three of which were printed in Australia. You can see the covers HERE and the Australia printings have a red asterisk next to them.

I was puzzled when trying to find a copy of ‘About Tilly Beamis’ as I have just got a copy of PAN’s stock list for May/June 1986 off eBay (very useful) and it listed this title as a PAN imprint but it was also listed by sellers as a PAVANNE imprint. I found an image which seemed to show the PAN logo but when the PAVANNE copy arrived it was the same cover. It was only on closer inspection I found it actually used the PAN logo but with the PAVANNE one underneath. Never come across this before, are there any more out there?

Last week saw yet another children’s favourite depart, namely Michael Bond of Paddington Bear fame. He was born in 1926 and for a time worked at the BBC as a cameraman on ‘Blue Peter’ He left in 1965 to become a full time writer after his first Paddington book was a success. PAN published 7 Paddington titles but unfortunately at the moment I can only find 4 of them. Click HERE to see them and I’ll add the others when they turn up. He also wrote the Olga da Polga stories which although not PAN have been mentioned before.

I’ve managed to track down my two ‘Playschool’ covers I referred to last week and they are shown HERE

I’ve also realised I didn’t have a couple of Hitchcock covers from 1968 so I’ve added them to my Hitchcock page ‘My Favourites in Suspense’ parts one and two. It’s made me realise I need to tidy up the Hitchcock’s as they are all over the place.

I was just looking on-line for things to do for an upcoming visit to Ludlow when I saw a familiar name, that of Stanley John Weyman, who was born at 54, Broad Street, Ludlow on 7th August 1855. There isn’t a ‘Blue Plaque’ but there is a blue sign as it is now, amongst other things, the Conservative Party Office and the Driving Test Centre.Weyman wrote twenty nine books between 1890 and 1928 (he died in 1928) of which six titles were published by PAN The first was ‘Under The Red Robe’ in 1951 and then they waited nearly twenty years before publishing another five. The covers can be seen by clicking HERE. ‘Under The Red Robe’ was probably the most popular being filmed three times including this version from 1937.I’ve not had any luck trying to find out who the artist/s were who painted the covers apart from ‘Under The Red Robe’ which is signed Chas(?) Cattermole.

I was sorry to hear of the death of Brian Cant, a name from the time of both mine and my children’s youth. He was on ‘Play School’ for 21 years (previously having trained as a printer) when PAN Piccolo published several titles linked to the series on behalf of the BBC. Unfortunately I can only find one of mine at the moment but I’ll keep searching as I know I have several more. There is another link to Piccolo and ‘Play School’ I’ve mentioned before through Hilary Hayton.

I’ve only just discovered that PAN published a series of books for those that believed in astrology. They were titled ‘Teri King’s PAN Astral Horoscopes’ The early ones featured quite nice drawings of the symbols for each sign of the zodiac but I’m not so sure about the later ones. I have made a page to show some examples plus other titles from the lucrative astrology market. Click HERE to see them.

I would love to put together a set from the early 80’s to show all the 12 symbols but some of the prices asked are just silly numbers such as this below.

Short blog this week due to the weather being so nice we are going away in the camper after being tied up with meetings about our ‘Back The Track’ project which is certainly gaining enthusiasm if not any actual on the ground progress, still early days yet.

I don’t think I posted this blog when I wrote it back in February so waste not want not as they say. I’ve updated the pop-up shop details with what should be it next appearance.

Nearly missed an event I’ve not seen around here before, a pop-up second hand book shop. It was in an empty shop unit in Wolverhampton and it doesn’t say much for the centre managements optimism as to re-letting it when they say the organisers can have it again at the end of August. Managed to find a few books but nothing PAN related unfortunately.I do like to keep our antipodean PAN Fans interested so here’s one for you. Alan Marshall’s Australia which was published by PAN (Australia) Ltd in 1882 and printed and bound in Australia by New Century Press. It cost me $5 with an unbelievable postage charge of $2. It arrived as quickly as some where I’ve spent several times the cost of the book in postage to not get any better a service.

And finally just when I though I was Daphne du Maurier’d out in PAN book covers along comes another one namely ‘Rule Britannia’ from 1974. I’ve added it to the page of others which can be found HERE.

UPDATE Sorry to hear of the death of Adam West who’ll probably be best remembered for playing Batman. I thought PAN had a pop-up book of Batman to go along with the ones they did for other DC heroes such as Superman, Spider-Man and The Hulk. Unfortunately as all the pop-up books are stored away ready for relocation later in the year I can’t check right now.

With the sad news of Roger Moore’s death last week I started sorting out all the PAN titles he appeared on and after a very enthusiastic start was quite disappointed to only find seven! Click HERE to see them but if you can think of any more please let me know. I was sure there would be some ‘The Saint’ titles but haven’t found any with the Moore TV tie-in.

UPDATE Just found he’s on the cover of ‘Gold’ from 1974 so now there are eight.

I also heard from a friend who has numerous pieces of original PAN book cover artwork and is currently trying to get copies of the books to go with the artwork. There are not many to go and I thought it would be easy especially for ‘The Slave Stealer’ as it is often advertised. It was only while trying to find the 1974 version that I realised how many were actually  the 1971 edition. Quite a ‘raunchy’ cover for a PAN. I might have to read it to see if it mentions what colour the voyeurs shirt actually was.

Lastly I noticed there was a new magazine out called ‘Infinity‘ which includes an article on pulp science fiction by Neil Pettigrew, a name very much associated with the ‘Pulp and Paperback Fair’ in London, the next being October 29th. I was pleased to see six PAN covers amongst the examples.

I had no takers for last weeks question as to who it was holding their original artwork for a PAN title. Well the answer was Eric Tenney probably most well known for his animal studies. I couldn’t find an email address for him so actually wrote a letter and was pleasantly surprised to get a call from him saying he still had the artwork for ‘Shockwave’ by Colin Forbes and that he had also painted at least three more Forbes covers plus other assorted titles which I’ve scanned and added HERE Eric’s daughter Susan kindly sent me photos of what I think are printers proofs Eric has filed away and it is from these I selected the PAN titles but I do also like the Fontana Ngaio Marsh covers. I have noticed the ‘Shockwave’ cover in the photo is actually the Guild Publishing edition and the same artwork was used for this as well as the PAN hardback and paperback editions.

I’ve also included, for completeness, a cover by another wildlife artist, Peter Warner who sadly died in 2007. It seems strange that someone who specialise in cats did the cover for dog stories!

…. and finally after mentioning GEEK Comic Com last week I managed to speak to Colin Baker. Well I felt sorry for him as nobody else was but I think he’s getting old as I said I remembered when we last met in 1985 but he didn’t!

STOP PRESS Just got a lovely piece of original Eric Tenney artwork off eBay. It had the ‘Make me an offer option’ so I went for a silly price I thought would be rejected but was accepted, why didn’t I go lower! I used my usual ploy and told my wife I’ve bought it for her, now just waiting for it to arrive.