You can image how happy I was when I found this countertop display stand from around the 1950’s at an antiques centre in Stroud and at a price I was happy to pay especially as it included shipping. In the photo I’ve used PAN numbers 1 to 9 but may use it for the titles with dustjackets.
Having mentioned I had got behind with my scanning I’ve taken the opportunity of the ‘heat wave’ to stop inside where it is cooler and have now scanned all my Dashiell Hammett covers and related titles. PAN published only four of his five titles, not including ‘The Thin Man’ for some reason plus a couple of collections of short stories. I have grouped them by title and then printing rather than same themed covers together.
Having noticed it was the 80th anniversary of ‘Operation Frankton’ in December (I know it’s early but probably forget when we actually get there) I have scanned all my ‘Cockleshell Heroes’editions as they tell the story of the operation. This was filmed in 1955 and at the back of the editions up tom 1970 there is an Appendix F which tells of the making but then gets dropped in future editions.
Having mentioned the couple of pieces of artwork by Gordon Crabb I was able to acquire recently here is the second one. It is a double, front and back, for ‘The Scapegoat’ by Daphne du Maurier. PAN published this title three time in nine years with different artwork each time, I think I was lucky to get the one I did as I’m not that enamored with the other two. I’ve also added a couple of non PAN covers from Gordon as I had them on a shelf. To see other du Maurier titles click HERE It was a bit of a coincidence that after mentioning ‘The Scapegoat’ I was looking through Margaret Forster’s book on ‘Daphne du Maurier’ to find any PAN references when I came across this one.
There were a couple of other references made about PAN by du Maurier in the book. The first is not a flattering one while the second shows she changed her tune when it came to money!
This is a bit reminiscent of Georgette Heyer who also felt paperbacks were very down market but eventually came around as PAN were now “producing really classy jobs”
Having just spotted another bookseller incorrectly claiming their edition of ‘The Life of Ian Fleming’ by John Pearson was a first edition first printing I thought I’d mention again that only a true first edition first printing has the number E12 on the front and spine. It doesn’t have the mention of Jan Pienkowski on the back plus the price is only 95c in New Zealand. I always think of Jan Pienkowski as the artist of several fantastic pop up books setting the trend for the many to follow back in the 70s and showing they were not just for children to enjoy. My children would probably say they best remember his ‘Meg and Mog’ books, a firm favourite of theirs and now of our grandson.
SORRY if you went to look for the blog early on last week but got the message about not being able to establish a link. What happened was the company that hosts my website said they couldn’t upgrade my database unless I changed the password. Not sure why but went and did it anyway only to then remember I needed to change the config for WordPress to the same password. Having failed to locate the config file due to ‘old age’ i.e. couldn’t remember where it was and having failed to successfully change the password back to what I thought it was I resorted to ringing the support line. All I can say was I’ll give them five stars as he was very patient and got me there in the end. I now feel very silly as I realised I did know where it was, I’d just not looked there.
