In spite of the threat of disruption to the trains the day turned out fine and I got to the Paperback and Pulp Book Fair in London in good time last Sunday. I’d like to say I took hundreds of photos but unfortunately my camera had decided to play up a couple of days before. I bought another but didn’t really have time to test it out so most of the ones I did take I have rejected. Instead, for a full report click on the photo above for another of Jules Burt’s excellent videos covering the show.

It was good to meet up again with so many fellow enthusiasts including Steve Chibnall who had sorted out some PAN bits and pieces for me. Steve is on the left in the photo above, with Steve Walker of Telos Books next to him and Jules Burt on the right. Below is a photo taken by Jules of me holding my’ goodies’ which I’ll show over the next few weeks. I had believed the forecast of rain all day so arrived over dressed and very hot but felt smug in the afternoon when it poured down. 

Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, AC, GM was born 30th August 1912 and died on this day, the 7th August 2011. She was a nurse and journalist who joined the French Resistance and later the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II, and briefly pursued a post-war career as an intelligence officer in the Air Ministry. Her story was written by Russell Braddon as ‘Nancy Wake‘ while she wrote her version as ‘The White Mouse’ PAN published the Braddon edition at least five times including a film tie-in.

 And finally a very big “Well Done” to Jules for achieving a colossal 5,000,000 views on his YouTube channels, I don’t know how he keeps them coming but please don’t stop!

If all goes according to plan this blog should launch itself as I am hoping to be down in Kent for a long weekend after having had a successful visit to London for the Paperback and Pulp Fair. The only problem might have been the availability of trains with a strike the day before causing disruption to the Sunday timetable. If I get there I will report back next week otherwise it will be a day out with the family somewhere but probably without books!

I was pleased to find this standee for ‘The Death of a President‘ by William Manchester and will admit to spending a bit more than I would have usually done but it was unusual. The one difference is that it doesn’t have ‘Z’ on the spine like the real thing. ‘Z’ means it cost 15/0

I am currently scanning in as many of the Georgette Heyer PAN covers from around the 80’s as I can find but I was interested to spot this “As Heyer’s popularity increased, other authors began to imitate her style. In May 1950, one of her readers notified her that Barbara Cartland had written several novels in a style similar to Heyer’s, reusing names, character traits and plot points and paraphrased descriptions from her books, particularly ‘A Hazard of Hearts’ which borrowed characters from ‘Friday’s Child’  and ‘The Knave of Hearts’ which took off ‘These Old Shades’. Heyer completed a detailed analysis of the alleged plagiarisms for her solicitors, and while the case never came to court and no apology was received, the copying ceased” I was sure PAN must have published the two Cartland titles mentioned as they had 133 titles in their list but seems I was wrong. I did find them in Arrow as a poor substitute although the covers are by William Francis Marshall who painted the ones for PAN and other publishers.

Our local library has been given dozens of Reader’s Digest condensed books which I’ve been going through to find matches to the untitled Jack McCarthy artwork I bought a while ago and so far have found three. What also struck me, and I think I’ve said this before, was the number of well known artists who also painted so many PAN covers. I did buy the ones that went with the artwork plus one which mentioned the upcoming publication of ‘JAWS 2′ by PAN. This year it is 45 years since it was published on the 19th April. After buying those four that’s a pound I’ll never see again!

This is an advert for two upcoming PAN titles from 1986 but neither published editions used the covers shown as far as I can ascertain. ‘The Crocus List’ is close to the one used but ‘Cover Story’ shown is from the hardback Collins edition with a cover by Brett Breckon.

I can never resist a bargain and when I saw this 1980 edition of Whitaker’s ‘British Books in Print’ it just called out to me. I think the carriage alone must have cost more than the price I paid for them. They do remind me of the old joke about the book ‘How To Be Taller’ in two volumes, one for each foot! PS The ruler is in inches. Plenty of PANs listed, might need to check out which ones I’ve not got, shouldn’t take too long!

I recently picked up a rebound copy of ‘The Naked Island’ signed by Russell Braddon which I’ve added to the page which now has two signed copies.  Wikipedia states “Russell Reading Braddon (25/01/1921 60 20/03/1995) was born in Sydney, Australia and was the son of a barrister. He served in the Malayan campaign during World War II. He was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in Pudu and Changi prisons and on the Thailand-Burma Railway between 1942 and 1945. During this time he met Ronald Searle, whose Changi sketches illustrate ‘The Naked Island’ After the war, he went on to study law at University of Sydney but failed to obtain a law degree. In 1949, Braddon moved to England after suffering a mental breakdown and followed by a suicide attempt. Doctors attributed this breakdown to his POW experiences, and urged him to take a year to recuperate. He described his writing career as “beginning by chance”. The Naked Island, published in 1952, was one of the first accounts of a Japanese prisoner of war’s experience and became ver million copies seller. Braddon went on to produce a wide range of works, including novels, biographies, histories, TV scripts and newspaper articles. In addition, he was a frequent broadcaster on British radio and television. He died in 1995 at his home in Urunga, New South Wales, having returned to Australia two years before”

I was really pleased to see the NT Baddesley Clinton Book Fair is returning after a couple of years absence. I was not so pleased to see it starts on the 29th July, the day we are travelling down to the family in Kent to hopefully get to London on the 30th for the ‘Paperback and Pulp Fair’ It runs until the 13th August so I’m sure we can get there and, hopefully, there will still be a few books left.

Golden PAN Award winning author Susan Howatch was 83 on the 14th July and I had intended to have scanned all her PAN covers by then for this blog but others things came along and so is still a work in progress, hopefully next week. Howatch was born in Leatherhead in Surrey as Susan Elizabeth Sturt in 1940. In 1964 she emigrated to the USA and married Joseph Howatch when she began writing, In 1980 she left her husband and returned to live near the cathedral in Salisbury in the UK. According to Wikipedai she has now returned to the place of her birth, Leatherhead but 192.com has her in London. Howatch was awarded a Golden PAN for selling a million copies of Penmarric and I am trying to contact to see if I can get a picture of her holding the statue. It was adapted into a BBC television series in 1979. I did find this line, which I love, in a review “Everyone in the book, almost, comes to a bad end but not nearly soon enough” Click HERE for an article about her time in the States. The mention of Salisbury Cathedral brings back painful memories of the Richard Chopping exhibition and my subsequent downfall!

With a trip to Portmerion coming up I thought I would look out my Patrick McGoohan / John Drake related badges and see what titles I had from PAN to go with them. I’m just going to include one today and I’ll save the others until I get back. This is a bit of cheat as it is from Boxtree, one of PAN Macmillan’s imprints. It claims to be two books in one and covers ‘Danger Man & The Prisoner’ or ‘The Prisoner & Danger Man’ depending on how you pick it up. Below is a scene from Danger Man, episode 18 from1965 with a very familiar PAN title.

I collect TOPLINERS whenever I see them as originally they were a joint PAN/Macmillan publication for reluctant teenage readers but eventually became just Macmillan. For some reason or other, and why I stopped collecting them for a while, the prices sky rocketed but seem to have come down again apart from the usual few over optimistic sellers. My latest one is ‘Men at War’ by Aidan Chambers who is probably better know for his ghost story compilations. Looking at the page of the covers some will enlarge if you click on them but I think a rescan is definitely called for.

While spending a couple of days away in the camper I popped into the sites information room where there was all of six books on the shelf. What surprised me was that one was ‘The Best of Everything’ by Rona Jaffe proclaiming ‘As seen on Mad Men’ but it was a Penguin 2011 edition referencing the PAN edition! I think it will be going to an National Trust bookshop shortly!

RUPA is an Indian publishing company I have mentioned a couple of times before but since then I have been actively tracking down the titles they published by arrangement with PAN. It was a bit weird in that I ordered ‘Outbreak’ from the sellers photos showing it to be one I wanted but when it arrived it was just the PAN edition. I contacted the seller who wanted to know where I had found the information about the PAN Rupa edition! He is looking for it but I don’t hold out much hope. I have also found another couple listed on WorldCat but not out the in the wild. To see the editions I have found so far click HERE. As usual if you know of any more please comment or email.

A big ‘Thank you’ to eagle eyed PAN Fan Jeremy Birch who pointed out something I had never noticed before. He set me the task to find the mistake on the spine of G242 ‘A Secret Understanding’ by Merle Miller. It took me a little while but then it became so obvious – the logo faces the wrong way. I’ve looked along the shelves but can’t spot another. PAN Piper logos face right and later PAN logos do as well but all the early ones in yellow face left. The cover artists often painted the logo as well to be stuck on but as David Tayler did many covers for PAN I would be surprised if he got it wrong.

I was really pleased to come back from a couple of days away to find my copy of ‘Minatare Masterpieces’ by Steve Chibnall had arrived. It’s a very lavishly illustrated (and weighty) tome and I was going to try and take some photos but found a video that shows more than I could. Click HERE to see it. My only complaint about my copy is that it looks like it has been dropped as the lower spine is wrinkled. I have one piece of McConnell artwork, the cover for ‘The Bounty Man’ by Mike M’Craken in the Western Library series and painted in 1951.

I’m always on the lookout for any books with covers by Hans Helweg and although this is not PAN it was painted at the same time as Hans was working on PAN covers and shows how versatile those artists were. It is ‘Boy on a Sheep Trail’ and is one of the 71 titles in the SRA Pilot Library series. Just wondering if Hans painted any of the others?

PAN always had an eclectic mix of non-fiction titles with several dictionaries on various subjects amongst them. I have taken a few of the ones on shelves to put on a page HERE. I do have more and will add them when I find the boxes I stored them in as most were too big to go on the shelf.

Just heard something which could upset a lot of peoples plans. There are planned train strikes on the 28th and 29th July, the day before the ‘Paperback and Pulp Fair’ in London on the 30th and they say this could disrupt services on the Sunday morning. looks like it is a case of wait and see.

I meant to mention this a while ago but other things came along. I managed to eventually visit the pop up bookshop in Wolverhampton, which finished last week, and sorry to say I was very disappointed this time. When it first started there were several tables with vintage paperbacks but now it’s just the odd 1970 PAN or older Penguins. It appeared to be mainly modern popular authors in paperback which I might pick up to read from our library but not to buy but I suppose they know what sells.

I was pleased to hear from fellow PAN Fan Joe Mclaughlin who drew my attention to an album by Dave Graney, who I will confess was a new name to me. The cover is a sort of pastiche of PAN G551/X239 “For Your Eyes Only” with artwork by J Oval (Ben Ostrick) The album cover is by what looks like T Mahoney in the signature.

While looking at Australian authors I was intrigued to come across Gabrielle Lord who wrote a series of titles that reminded me of Sue Grafton. Sue sadly only managed to write 25 books for letters of the alphabet detective stories. Gabrielle has written 12 teen titles for each month of the year none of which were published by PAN. I have only found two of her titles published by PAN out of her 35 books but I’ll keep looking. Lord was born in Sydney in 1946 and worked as a teacher before becoming a full time writer.

I recently picked up this poster for the Robert Silverberg titles published by PAN with artwork by Josh Kirby. I will try and get a better image of it as it was too big for my scanner as it measures 27″ x 17″ I have resorted to a photo as it  it was rolled up and kept wanting to roll back so it’s under a rug hopefully being flattened at the moment. The photo is taken of it under a sheet of glass. I’ve scanned in the six editions of the three titles in the Silverberg Majipoor Chronicles series with the Kirby artwork. Pleased to find Robert Silverberg is still with us being born on the 15th January 1935 in New York.

Always pleased to add links to another couple of Jules Burt’s videos. This first one is Cleaning Vintage Great Pan Paperbacks – Part 7 and is a great way to see the wonderful artwork on the covers. The second is for a preview of the Paperback and Pulp Book Fair 2023 in London on the 30th July. I hoping to be there if plans to visit the family in Kent at the same time come to fruition. Here is a still from the video, I recognise Jules but who can that handsome hirsute gentleman be ……..?

Still sorting Jackie Collins editions and found yet another signed copy of ‘Lovers & Gamblers’ this time to Louise but no further clues as to who she might, did she work at PAN like the others?

As it would have been Rona Jaffe’s birthday on the 12th June I’ve rescanned in all her PAN editions that I know of. This includes X81 and X80, the first printing of which was incorrectly numbered. Jaffe wrote 17 books of which PAN published 4. She was born in 1931 in New York City and died in London on the 30th December 2005. Jaffe wrote her first book ‘The Best of Everything‘ in 1958 while working as an associate editor at Fawcett Publications. It was adapted into a film starring Joan Crawford also called ‘The Best of Everything’ in 1959

I’m always pleased to get comment’s on blogs and especially the latest one regarding James E McConnell. Steve Chibnall’s book on McConnell is now available to pre-order from Telos Publishing. It’s thanks to ‘down.thetubes.net’ for letting me know and for the links from their article to my website.. Talking of McConnell does anyone know if he also painted the cover of the Heinemann edition of ‘Bony and the Black Virgin’ as it is so similar to his later PAN edition?

When I saw some original book cover artwork I couldn’t resist even thought it was for Hodder and not PAN. It was for the 1958 edition of ‘Polonaise’ by Doris Leslie signed ‘Leonard’ and on the back it said D Michael Leonard. I emailed Viv Lawrence who looks after Michael’s website and he kindly replied with the good news to say “Yes, this is a very early Michael Leonard commercial work. I recognise the signature which is how he signed his work at that time. D M Leonard is Douglas Michael Leonard always know as Michael. He would have just left St Martin’s School of Art aged 25. He is still with us but in a care home now being well looked after”

Thanks to fellow PAN Fan Stuart Radmore from Upfield’s adopted country for spotting a couple of errors on my Arthur Upfield page featured in a recent blog. He notice I had included a duplicate edition which has now been removed and also I had not included X716. On looking for it on the shelf I also found I had not included X717 so now both added, thanks Stuart.

I’m still sorting the different editions of Jackie Collins (currently by typeface for her name) and notice at least two were signed. One is to Celeste who was Celeste Parsons and worked at PAN while the other is to Steve (?) who was a ‘rep supreme’ apparently. Click HERE to see them.

Looking at ‘The Five Great Novels of James M Cain’ published by PAN as a Picador I checked if PAN had published all five titles separately as I couldn’t remember seeing ‘Mildred Pierce’ on the shelf. It seems my memory was correct so to make up for its absence I’ve scanned in my three US Penguin copies of the title although not in the best of condition. I’ve also included the Guild Books edition of ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ as Guild Books was another of Alan Botts companies. Cain wrote over 20 novels plus short stories and plays. James Mallahan Cain was born on the 1st July 1892 in Annapolis, Maryland and died on the 27th October 1977 at University Park, Maryland. Click HERE to see the covers.

At the time of the coronation of King Charles III last month I scanned in some titles with a vague royal connection and now realise there was another one I had missed so better late than never I’ve added ‘The Reality of Monarchy’ by Andrew Duncan from 1970. Dipping into it I don’t think it will be joining my ‘to read’ pile anytime soon!