There seems to have been a lot on this week with days out to BIFoR (nothing to do with books but very interesting) and nights away in the camper so there is only one post for author Arthur William Upfield. I’ve been scanning in his PAN covers from 1954 to 1984 making it a total of 67 and including backs was not only time consuming but a bit boring as well hence a few done at a time. I have put the individual covers under their PAN numbers and all of them on one page HERE which might take a while to load in! As usual, pleased let me know of any I might have missed.

Arthur William Upfield was born in Gosport on 1st September 1890 and was registered under the name of William Arthur Upfield but his names were later reversed to avoid the diminutive ‘Little Bill’ apparently. He moved to Australian in 1911 and fought with the Australian military during the First World War. following his war service he travelled extensively throughout Australia obtaining a knowledge of Australian Aboriginal culture that he would later use in his written works. He is best known for his books of detective fiction featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force, a mixed-race Indigenous Australian. In addition to writing detective fiction Upfield was also a member of the Australian Geological Society and was involved in numerous scientific expeditions. After living at Bermagui, New South Wales, Upfield moved to Bowral where he died on the 12th February 1964. His last work, ‘The Lake Frome Monster‘, published in 1966, was completed by J.L. Price and Dorothy Strange.

PAN didn’t publish all his 29 titles but ETT Imprints did in uniform editions from 2019. They can be found on the Arthur Upfield website.

While looking through literally hundreds of different editions I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance between the Heinemann hardback edition of 1959 and that by James McConnell for the 1962 PAN edition of ‘Bony and the Black Virgin’. I can’t find a name for the artist of the Heinemann edition.

It’s also interesting to see ETT Imprints used the same TV series photo in 2020 as did PAN for ‘The Barrakke Mystery’ while all the other 28 covers from ETT appear to use artwork.

Not quite PAN but a sort of link via James Bond as I’ve just received my signed and numbered copy of ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’ which included 12 feet of bubble wrap around it! My copy is numbered 794 of 1,000 and here is Charlie Higson actually signing it, well you never know, it could be.

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Now I know this isn’t much but I was really pleased to get a copy of ‘Hollywood Wives’ by Jackie Collins where is states over a million copies have been sold. I did have it on the page but it was from the web as all those for sale seemed to be stock images. I found it on the 50p table in the secondhand bookshop at Shugborough Hall, the elusive edition which has now been added to the page. I have several more Jackie Collins titles to add and I’ll feature them in a upcoming blog.

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While at Shugborough I also picked up a couple of ‘thick ‘PANs with ‘Omamori’ at 878 pages while ‘Brazil’ weighs in at over a1,000. It was a coincidence that both covers are by Barbara Lofthouse of which I can find very little so far apart from;

I know she also designed stamps so if anyone knows of any more PAN covers she painted or details about her including a contact email I would be very grateful.
UPDATE Just found THIS LINK with a bit more information. Christine Isteed at Artist Partners told me Barbara has given up commercial work and doesn’t embrace the digital world! 

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Jules Burt is continuing to work his way through his PAN collection and this time he’s looking at his Science Fiction and Horror titles from 1945 onwards in chronological order.. You can watch the video by clicking HERE.

This week the John Burke contract is for ‘New Tales of Unease‘ which was listed as ‘Tales of Unease III’ on it. There is also a couple of items of correspondence regarding two of the stories. I think John Burke was not happy with one where there is a wad of letters between him and the writers agent who wants some sort of written statement which John says is not something usually requested hence he is ‘cheesed off’ I’ve also rescanned the earlier two related titles ‘Tales of Unease’ and ‘More Tales of Unease’ , the latter with the really creepy cover!

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John Burke was a PAN stalwart and wrote under many pen names including J. F. Burke, Jonathan Burke, Jonathan George, Robert Miall, Martin Sands, Owen Burke, Sara Morris, Russ Ames, Roger Rougiere, and Joanna Jones; and co-wrote with his wife Jean Burke under the pen name Harriet Esmond. This is a full page advertisement  for his books in a PAN leaflet.

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I recently had an email from Colin Larkin, author of ‘Cover Me’ who ask about ‘Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide’ which reminded me of all the other pastiche PAN covers, some for real titles and some with covers than might have been. There are several examples on the website. No idea if this is a recycled cover from a differnt title but I see it is available as a poster from HERE

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I meant to. post this last week but it got over looked so better late than never. It was the local elections last Thursday but the closest PAN tie-in I could find was Piper XP59 ‘A Guide to the General Election’  from 1964. Harold Wilson of the Labour Party won that year. The other titles are regarding monarchs of the last century including Queen Victoria, King George V and Queen Elizabeth II.

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I have mentioned the PAN Shakespeare titles before which used some of the artwork from a series that appeared in ‘The Sunday Times’ You could subscribe and get posters featuring the characters and description plus a painting by a well know artist. These are not easy to find at a price that I’m happy to pay so when a bundle turned up on eBay within my budget I couldn’t resist. There were 29 and I though this was all of them but it turns out there are 36 listed as Lady Macbeth, Prospero, Henry V, Falstaff, Mark Antony, Nurse, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard II, Richard III, Mistress Quickly, Viola, Hamlet, Desdemona, Ophelia, Othello, Banquo, King Lear, Henry IV, Touchstone, Rosalind, Cleopatra, Antony, Julius, Caesar, Isabella, Caliban, Iago, Cordelia, Leontes, Polonius, Romeo, Juliet, Sir Toby Belch, Malvolio, Titania, Henry VIII. Now to work out which seven I don’t have yet. They are double crown paper size (30″x20″) and I now need somewhere and some how to flatten them out.

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Having obtained several PAN contracts and other correspondence mainly for titles by John Burke I thought I would start putting them on a page with a scan of the relevant cover. This week it’s for ‘Moon Zero Two’ which was written as a book of the film in 1969. This was a 1969 British science fiction film from Hammer, directed by Roy Ward Baker, and starring James Olson, Catherine Schell, Warren Mitchell, and Adrienne Corri. The film takes place on the Moon in the year 2021. The film script was written by amongst others, PAN stalwart, Gavin Lyall. John got paid £525 plus royalties for his version.

I have a sheet of paper where I jot down ideas for the blogs and noticed I had three with a Corgi/Roger Hall connection so I’m lumping them together this week. I’ll say sorry to PAN purists but back to normal(!) next week.

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Looking at the PAN Romance covers and then the Corgi Romance ones I was intrigued by the similarity in styles over the years. Corgi started with a full cover painting and then so did PAN. Later both PAN and Corgi went for a smaller painting in a frame and then PAN went for a photo followed by Corgi a little later. I’ve been puzzling over the one Corgi which has the monogram that looks like CD which I’m sure I’ve seen before but can’t recall a name. There are a couple of familiar names used by both publishers. I’ve added a couple more Corgis just because I had them on the shelf. Click HERE to see the comparisons.

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Before Bonham’s held their auction of PAN book covers in 1991, which turned out to be very controversial, they auction original artwork from CORGI in 1990. This was from the collection of Mr. And Mrs. John Munday and includes many familiar names such as Roger Coleman, Roger Hall,, James McConnell, Harry Hants, Edward Mortelmans, and of course Sam Peffer. The cover features artwork by Josh Kirby. At the moment it is just sitting on the shelf but if anyone is interested then I can scan its contents and put them on the site?

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The third CORGI related post is for the only original piece of CORGI artwork I have. It is by Roger Hall, who of probably better known for painted the 1955 PAN ‘Casino Royale‘ cover plus several in PAN’s Romance series, has a lot of his artwork included in the CORGI catalogue. The artwork if for the Conrad Richter title ‘The Lady’ number SW731 from 1959.

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Having acquired eleven Nicholas Monsarrat covers from the 80’s I thought I had them all until a twelfth popped up on eBay. It was sold as a library copy being covered in sticky back plastic with a lot of creases and a label under the plastic. I thought it would be easy to find a better copy but I was wrong so I bought it. Luckily the sticker was under another layer of plastic but on top of the main covering. With a knife I was able to remove the sticker and with PaintShop Pro, most of the creases so I’m still on the look out for a belter copy or any other titles in this series I may have missed. I always remember George Sharp being adamant that ‘The White Rajah’ in this series was NOT by him although his name is on the back.

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Isn’t it the way, you get one library copy with a label under the sticky plastic cover and then along comes another. This time it was for ‘Gilt Edge’ by Ian Moffitt. I’ve had an overprinted copy for a while where the word PAN on the front and spine is changed to Hinkler but which a bit of careful knife work I managed to get the label off.

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Having mentioned the sad news of the death of George Sharp very recently there was a odd coincidence in that I got a members email from English Heritage regarding Blue Plaques in Fitzroy Square in London. It was in Fitzroy Square I first met George where he lived before moving to Hampstead. I hope they are going to put up a plaque to him.

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Jules Burt has posted another of his excellent videos and this time it was a return visit to Dorset Bob who has a lot of PAN books although he specialises in Science Fiction (they start about 7 minutes 30 seconds in)

Having been emailing Chris Molan recently I sorted out several more examples of her work which I have put on a page HERE. This is a work in progress and I’ll add others as I find them as there are undoubtably more. To find out about Chris and her work visit her website at www.christinemolan.co.uk

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I’m still going through the several folders of preliminary drawings and paintings from Hans Helweg and have found two which are definitely the right titles and one possible.  The two I’m sure of are ‘The Sterile Cuckoo’ by John Nichols and ‘The Fifth Point of the Compass‘by Miles Tripp with the ‘maybe?’ being ‘Mia‘ by Derek Monsey. Now to go through all the Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer negatives again to see what I might have missed there.

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As Google asked me if I’d like to try ‘Bard’ I thought I would ask it ‘What is the history of tikit.net?’ to which it replied;

“The website tikit.net was created in 1996 by a group of Pan Books enthusiasts. The site was originally intended as a forum for fans of Pan Books to share their thoughts and experiences, but it quickly grew into a comprehensive resource for information about Pan Books.

The site features a searchable database of Pan Books titles, as well as information about authors, illustrators, and other Pan Books-related topics. Tikit.net also hosts a number of forums and discussion groups, where fans can discuss their favorite Pan Books titles and share their own artwork and stories.

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…. and finally a bonus feature, one of Jules Burt’s excellent videos and this time he is cleaning some more of his Great PANs.

The first edition of ‘Casino Royale‘ was published 70 years ago on the 13th April 1953 by Jonathan Cape, We will have to wait another 2 years and 5 days until we get to the 70th anniversary of the PAN edition. The original PAN artwork  by Roger Hall was sold at Bonham’s in 1991 and now resides in the collection of Michael L VanBlaricum.

A recent email from Rog P. mentioned the cover below left which is a pastiche but made me wonder what was the original title? ‘Castle in Spain’ from 1963 came to mind but was not quite right, then I spotted’ Tomorrow is Theirs’ from 1958 as the correct original. It got me thinking was the later cover a makeover of the first one as they are so similar or just based on it? Is it a coincidence both titles are by Anne Duffield and painted by Sam Peffer?

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Having rescanned and added several different editions of ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ last week this week I am finishing off the later ones. It appears there were only three more so HERE they are. I thought it was more like half a dozen but realized I’d put them on a pile of George Underwood covers. I’ve included a Longman cover which also used the artwork by Vic Fair for the movie poster.

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While watching another of Jules Burt’s excellent videos, this time called ‘A Step Back in Time’ looking a publisher’s catalogues, contracts and ephemera. etc. I love all this as much as I do the covers so if any one has any bits and pieces they don’t want then just add a comment or email me. Jules video reminded me of a 1966 PAN leaflet I picked up recently.

I was really sad to receive an email from Ben Sharp last Friday to let me know his father, George Sharp, had passed away in August. I thought of artist George as a friend and I should have suspected something was not right when I didn’t get replies to my emails of scans of his covers I had found. He’d always come back with comments such as who posed, that one was turned upside down etc. Not only was he a fantastic artist but from 1972 to 1995 he served as Chairman of The English Sangha Trust and in late 1976 he initiated the invitation to Ajahn Chah to come to England and establish the first monastery in the West in the tradition of the Forest Sangha. This was Amaravati, a Theravada Buddhist monastery situated at the eastern end of the Chiltern Hills in south-east England.  The funeral for George took place there on the 8th September and I have watched it online, it is a serenely moving ceremony. George would have been 90 this week. R.I.P. George

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Lindsay Brown (now MaCleod) was only twelve when she her first novel ‘The Treasure of Dubarry Castle published by Hale in hardback in 1978 and and two years later in paperback by PAN as a Piccolo. It was the same with her second novel ‘The Secret of the Silver Lockets’ published by Hale in 1980 and Piccolo in 1982. I was particularly pleased to find the latter was one of the many paperbacks I got Val Biro to sign when I went down to visit him in Bosham. Val illustrated the pages inside ‘Treasure’ but Chris Molan painted both covers. I emailed Chris and was really pleased when she replied to say “Hello Tim, Yes I am the artist ,How delightful to see those paperback covers again and know that they are valued. Yes, the eighties and nineties were a golden age for ‘hand’ generated artwork. I absolutely loved it. It’s a while ago but I may be able to answer some specific questions. I freelanced for many publishers between 1976- 2010.and the turnover, as you may imagine, was huge. Scanning through those covers you sent, yes the top one, ‘The Treasure of Dubarry Castle’ was a favourite, and I have the artwork here. Regarding writers, you are right and it was always a thrill – and so much easier – to illustrate for fine writers (like the ones you show) but always much more difficult to whip up something enticing to sell a mediocre story! I used to belong to The Association of Illustrators, where we aired our griefs about not being able to reclaim artwork from companies like OUP, for whom we all jumped through deadline hoops. For 30 years I also taught young students on the Illustration degree course at UWE, and on their behalf- and for a few thousand others – a hearty ‘Well Done’ to you for making that journey! She very kindly sent me the photo of her holding the original artwork. Thank you Chris and I will make a page showing more of your covers in a future blog.

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Eric M. in the States emailed to say he is after a 1949 copy of ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ by John Buchan. Unfortunately I only have the one copy but if any one does have a spare pleased email or leave a comment and I’ll let him know. This prompted me to rescan and add to the pages for the editionsl Number 14., Number G218 and Number X696. I’ll try and get the later editions scanned this week.