Recently on eBay there was an auction for some original Pat Owen paintings of Andy Murray playing in November 2016 at the O2 arena in London when he beat Marin Cilic in the ATP World Tour finals. I wasn’t sure about bidding as nothing really related to PAN apart from Pat also painted many covers for PAN but at the price they were very cheap. There were three which became four and arrived the day after the auction ended. They are signed on the front and on the back and must be amongst some of Pats last work as he died in 2017. It turned out it was Pat’s brother-in-law that was selling them.

This weeks same number two covers is for PAN G148 ‘God’s Little Acre’ by Erskine Caldwell from 1958 and 1960. I suspect the 1958  one is by Hans Helweg although not signed while the 1960 one clearly is and for which he got paid £42. It doesn’t follow the usual pattern in that the film tie-in cover came first and the later doesn’t mention it on the front but has the same back cover as the earlier with a film still. I prefer the 1960 cover but I might be biased as the original artwork is hanging on my wall. My copy is also signed by Erskine Caldwell. The 1963 cover, X323, is also by Helweg and for this ‘re do’ he got paid £50 16s.

Sometimes when I’m looking at the asking price for a book on eBay I’m left wondering if it is genuine or a typing error as in this example.

This is not a rare title and many copies can be found for a fraction of that price. PAN published two editions, X101 from 1961 with a cover by William Francis Phillipps and 0330 241001 in 1974.
STOP PRESS Since I mentioned this I have had an email to say the price has been reduced by ….. £384.99!

Don’t ask ChatGPT to make a picture of a long haired black cat like our Hecate reading a PAN copy of ‘Casino Royale’ on her birthday if you don’t want to be disappointed. It couldn’t even spell ‘Casino’ right! Mind you I didn’t tell it she only has three legs with one of her front ones missing but it’s got her eyes right with one darker than the other, pity it’s not the same on both images.

The artwork I successfully bid on at auction eventually arrived and while looking at the roughs for covers I don’t think were ever used the address on the label sounded familiar. Straight to Google for a search and it came up with the reason why. It was on the news as Banksy recently painted a couple of elephants on the end of a building and it was on number 10 right next door to 9. Click HERE to see the Banksy and also the rough and if anyone has any idea if it was actually used pleased let me know.

I was hoping to make it a trio of Nobel Prize for Literature winning authors in Picador last week but could only think of Steinbeck (1962) and Hemingway (1954) and they were published as PANs. Since then I’ve Googled to see a list of winners and I found I had forgotten all about Gabriel Garcia Marquez which was an oversight as at least three covers proclaim the win on their front covers. Four of the covers are by artist Gary McAvers and all I can find out about him was that he is American.  If I made a blog just about winners published as PANs I should also include Rudyard Kipling (1907), William Butler Yeats (1923) and Pearl Buck (1938)

This weeks two covers with the same number very close together date wise is for PAN 335 ‘The Trojan Horse’ by (Ralph) Hammond Innes (1914-1998) The 1955 edition has artwork by Barrow while the 1957 has it by Graham R Barkley. I can’t see if there was any reason for a change such as film tie-in but I think I prefer the later version although I believe there is a chase in the sewers of London. I may have to read the book to see which is most faithful to the story line.

PAN published several of the works of 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature winning author Hermann Hesse (1877 to 1962) “for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style” Most of the PAN covers were painted by Peter Le Vasseur apart from one by George Sharp and a photo by Peter Williams. I contacted Peter who kindly emailed back to say:

“Hi Tim, I started doing book covers when a friend asked me to do one in the 60’s.After that I did covers for a number of companies through and agent in Soho, the company was called Artist’s Partners. I came in contact with Pan through AP in the 1970’s. I did covers for their imprint Picador because they did more arty/poetic books, hence doing the covers for Hermann Hesse’s books. Hermann Hesse’s work was going through a bit of a revival at that time. Picador were very good in that they gave me a huge amount of freedom to interpret the author’s work. All the original art work was sold, most of it through the Portal Gallery, who showed my work around that time. Others sold in Guernsey where I live. One or two of the images are in the book about me, which was published by Lutterworth Press a couple of years ago. It’s called ‘A Brush with Life’ and was written by Jason Monaghan. I hope that helps a bit, come back to me if you need anything more and i will see if I can help”
I have a copy of Peter’s book which is a very informative read and features the art work for three of his Picador covers and lists others but misses out ‘Rosshalde’. Peter also painted the cover for the Picador 1980 edition of ‘The Track to Bragula’ by B. Wonger

The second Nobel Prize for Literature author is Knut Hamsun (1859 to 1952) who won his in 1920. Again PAN published several of his titles with most of the covers by Paul Leith although oddly again one of them is by George Sharp plus another by Bee Willey. I have emailed Paul but so far no reply. His website states “Paul Leith is a British illustrator, artist and graduate from The Royal College of Art. Paul’s work covers decades of colourful creativity; producing murals, felt artworks, sketches and commercial illustration. His experience is reflected in his high profile client list which includes Royal Mail, Penguin Books, The Sunday Times, The Body Shop, W H Smiths and Virgin Trains to name a few. Paul is currently working on a variety of creative projects and is based in Carlisle, Cumbria”

This might just be me but sometimes I look at a cover and go ‘What the …..?’ I am now offering the Picador edition of ‘Waterland’ by Graham Swift from 1984 as my ‘What the ……?’ of this week.

I found out about some of pieces of original PAN artwork coming up for sale at couple of auction houses and thought I would give them a punt. One I had known about for quite a while as Mark at Sworders had asked me if I could identify the artist which I could as it was Hans Helweg. It was for the later edition of ‘Sweet Thursday’ by John Steinbeck. I thought I had bid a reasonable amount but in the end it went well above that at £380. The second low was for Eric Tenney’s artwork for ‘The Stone Leopard’ by Colin Forbes at Tooveys. I wasn’t that bothered about it so I didn’t bid that high but what I hadn’t noticed was that it also included the artwork for ‘Path Into the Unknown: The Best of Soviet S. F.’ with a cover by W F Phillips. This went for £110 and Stuart Webb was the successful bidder. The third lot was something I really regret missing as I didn’t read all the details. It appeared to be a collection of artwork for children’s books but also included paintings by Roger Hall for three covers in the ‘PAN Romance Series’. It went for £130 and again Stuart was the lucky bidder. So we come to the one high which was for ‘Find A Victim’ by John Ross Macdonald with a cover by Stephen Richard Boldero. I probably got carried away and bid too high to win it at £300. On the plus side it also came with several other artworks including two paintings for a couple of covers for published hardbacks and some roughs. Thanks to Stuart for the photographs of his winning lots and permission for me to include them on the appropriate pages.

There was a very optimistic seller on eBay offering a home bound copy of the PAN 22nd printing of ‘Moonraker’ from 1965 as a hardback.

I was pleased to hear from John Mott who told me his uncle, the actor Frank Ellement, was used by Sam Peffer as the face of James Lessiter on the cover of G122 ‘Miss Silver Comes to Stay’ John wrote “Frank was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1928 and died in London, England in 1998. He moved to the UK in his early 20’s. He was an aspiring opera singer and did quite a bit of modelling and bit part acting to make ends meet. There is an entry for him at IMDB. He eventually settled into life as a school teacher. He was also for some time the lover of journalist Patrick Thursfield (1923-2003) His younger sister (my aunt) passed away in Ottawa a few years ago, and I inherited Frank’s portfolio scrap books. These had been sent to my aunt by Patrick Thursfield, in his capacity as Frank’s executor. A small advertisement for the Patricia Wentworth paperback was clipped and pasted into the scrapbook, along with many other magazine and newspaper clippings featuring my uncle. This small clipping is very likely the only piece of surviving evidence that links my uncle to Sam Peffer. I am attaching a professional headshot of my uncle from that time, that most closely approximates the art. Until visiting your website, I had always imagined that my uncle had posed for the painting. It now seems quite possible that Sam never actually met my uncle, but simply painted the face from a headshot” At one time Frank was considered for the role of James Bond. I contacted Kathy, Sam’s great niece, to see if she knew the name but she emailed back to say “Just a quick one to let you know that I have never heard Frank Ellement’s name mentioned or seen it written as a contact in an address book, but so pleased to have received your link as I don’t remember seeing that cover before. I see it is 1958, the year I was born. Definitely uncle Sam modelling in the photos, it is in the sitting room of 13 Stonenest Street, Finsbury Park (my childhood home with Kit and Sam). The curtains are claret red and the carpet is black with yellow scrolls. The desk furniture is their dressing table, and the chair is from their dining room suite which had a mustard/grey mottled vinyl seat. The black telephone on the desk was their home phone and the number was ‘Archway 6040’ The green phone in ‘Please Don’t Eat the Daisies’ with Doris Day/David Niven, was also their home phone from 1964 to the 1980s in Finchley was ‘Hillside 9989’!“

While sorting out my Picador titles I found I had two copies of ‘Roots’ by Alex Haley, neither of which are firsts.  I thought it would be easy to find a copy but I was wrong. This is probably because it wasn’t the success it became after the TV series so later copies are the ones ‘flashed’ in some way. I was interested to find in one of my copies a lot of faded newspaper clippings purporting to say a lot of the book was plagerised and fabricated, this being discovered in Haley’s private papers after his death. Click HERE to see one of the articles from ‘The Times’

This weeks short lived cover is for  X375 ‘Claudelle’ by Erskine Caldwell. The 1960 cover by Hans Helweg, for which he got paid £42, was replaced in 1961 by a Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer cover as a film tie-in. The 1960 cover mentions a film coming shortly so probably prophesising is own demise. While the original artwork from Sam correctly names the film released as  ‘Claudelle Inglish’ the printed cover has it as ‘Jilted’, the name used for the film in Australia amongst other countries. I much prefer Hans version and my copy of the book looks and feels as though it has never been read.

After mentioning a couple of covers with two versions just a year apart (‘N or M?’ and ‘Maquis’) I thought I would include another with two versions from 1956 and 1957. This time it is X1 ‘Eastern Approaches’ by Fitzroy Maclean with the Bruce C Windo cover ousting the Carl Wilton version. Major-General Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean of Dunconnel, Bt KT CBE is often cited as the model for James Bond but then again are so many others.

While sorting my James Mayo (penname of Stephen Coulter) covers I though I had made a mistake as I had three copies of ‘Asking For It’ all dated 1972. The first was just a standard, the second had a ‘New In Pan’ sticker but the third was completely different. I have to say I don’t really like the earlier cover with the ventriloquists’ dummy and I guessing the one featuring a tape is the later version as the price has gone up 5p. As everything is exactly the same I presume they are just using up previous text blocks. This title is number six in the ‘Charles Hood’ series.

‘Solomon’s Vineyard’ by Jonathan Latimer is another title with two covers both with the same date of 1961. I think the earlier one could be the Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer  version with the other being later just from the style of painting. I’m wondering if the one was a UK version as it is priced whereas the other has no price on the cover or back which could make it an international edition. I’ve scrutinised them and the dated text block is exactly the same in both.

Thank you to Peter Miller who let me know he had an article in ‘The Penguin Collector’ number101 before it was sent out. It is regarding the fallacy that Mervyn Peake designed all the PAN logos when in fact it was only the first six titles published without a number that he had a hand in. From PAN Number 1 onwards it was a design by Edward Young.

Two of Meryn Peake’s designs.

A while back I was pontificating on why PAN felt the need to issue two printings of ‘N or M?’ just a year apart with so similar covers, I am now wondering the same as to why the two covers for ‘Maquis’ from 1956 and 1957? I do think the later by Rex Archer is a better cover with the earlier one by Carl Wilton looking, in my opinion, indistinct. I pulled my other two George Millar titles of the shelf and have added them to the site. They are X16 ‘Horned Pigeon’ and ‘The Bruneval Raid’

I have mentioned Peter Tietjen a couple of times as he worked for PAN in the studios in the 1970s. He has a few albums of PAN related bits and pieces online and I dip into them now and again. This time it’s a video they made while experimenting with animation and features the word ”PIcador’ It is from 1975. Click HERE if you want to watch it, it lasts just over a minute.

Having mentioned I was scanning in the Agatha Christie covers I call the White Top and photo series last week I thought I should I knuckled down and finished all the titles, editions and variants I have from this late 1960s, early 70s series. Since then I have spotted at least two more variants of titles I have but I don’t think I’ll be rushing to buy them as there are plenty of the others at the moment (five copies of Poirot Investigates might be enough) This sort of completes the Christie photo covers from PAN with the Double Dagger series and the All Photo series.

When doing a search for PAN I am often offered PANther but for once it was a title I was after, namely ‘Raiders of Darfur’ by Stanley Mann. The reason is that the cover was by Derek Stowe, who also painted several PAN covers and sadly passed last year, and was the only one of his covers I didn’t have the book for. The image on his page was from the Bodleian Library and was for the Panther 214 paperback edition. What I got was the hardback library edition actually bound by Panther and not by a library as I thought it would be. The Panther Library editions, published by Hamilton, are not to be confused with the Panther Library editions, published by Nelson, as I found out! Anyone want a copy of ‘At Close Grips’?

I mentioned the passing of artist Eric Tenney and that I’d had a communication from Sue, his daughter about selling his artworks. She also said “We do have many of his paintings but Charlie is special. Dad rescued him from a pet shop in Epsom, built a huge cage for him in his studio and worked striped to the waist in an over heated studio to try and nurse him back to health. We named him Charlie and used to love petting and feeding him moths and meal worms which he held like a banana”  I had bought Eric’s painting of Charlie the Bushbaby off eBay but when Sue asked if there was any chance of getting him back I reluctantly agreed. In exchange Sue sent me the artwork for Colin Forbes ‘Shockwave’ but we’ll miss Charlie even though I scanned him in and his clone is now taking his place. The photo is of Charlie back with the family.

Sorry, just a brief blog this week as we have spent the last few days pet sitting our daughters five cats and huge dog, who is lovely, but insists on sleeping on the bed with us otherwise it howls all night. That was followed by the arrival of our son and family coming to stay for a few days, which was really enjoyable with trips out every day to places like Blist Hill, but which makes scanning books etc. very difficult.

I mentioned last week the sad news of the passing of artist Eric Tenney. I have since heard from Susan, Eric’s daughter, to say she has been going though his studio and there are numerous paintings that could be available for sale. If you know of a cover by Eric and would be interested in find out if it is in his studio please email Susan using susanth107@aol.com.

Congratulations to Jules Burt on getting the last title in the first 1,000 Penguins he was after, namely number 464 ‘Death on the Borough Council’ I am hope to experience that elation one day when I get my last title, X705 ‘PAN Junior Crosswords Book 3’

I am currently trying to scan in all the Christie covers with a white top and a photo from around the late 1960s to early 70’s with as many of the variants as I have which is proving to be a larger undertaking than I though but hopefully completed by next week.

Hearing a recent mention of the name Sandy Gall made me check how many of his books PAN published. He is a Scottish journalist, author, and former ITN news presenter and PAN published two of his books. I thought I’d just check on AbeBooks to see if they listed any I hadn’t got and it would have been a dilemma knowing which copy of ‘Chasing The Dragon’ to buy if I needed one. £9.22 for shipping!

His other title was ‘Gold Scoop’ published in 1979. Henderson Alexander “Sandy” Gall, CMG, CBE was born in Penang on the 1st October 1927.

While constantly trying to track down the artists for book covers (and the artists themselves) I often find Pat Owen’s name crops up  such as the first edition of ‘The Greatest Raid of All’ but I’m stumped by the later two. Can anyone suggest possible artists as mine would just be guesses from the styles. The raid was named ‘Operation Chariot’ and was a daring attack on the docks at St Nazaire in German-occupied France by British forces on 28 March 194212345. The operation was a feat of cunning and daring that helped to shape the war at sea1. Over 600 Commandos and Royal Navy servicemen set sail from Falmouth, Cornwall to partake in the raid4. The mission was to sail undetected up the estuary to St. Nazaire disguised as German warships and destroy the largest dry dock in Europe.

Looking at a couple of covers with the connection of having a face on on them makes me wonder who comes up with the ideas? The first is for Sidney Sheldon’s first novel  ‘The Naked Face’, one of the several titles by Sheldon published by PAN. I’m not sure what it is supposed to convey but I quite like it unlike the latter edition which does nothing for me. Sheldon was born Sidney Schechtel in Chicago, Illinois on February 11th 1917. He was prominent in the 1930s, first working on Broadway plays films, and television. After turning 50, he began writing romantic suspense novels, with his novels selling over 300 million copies in 51 languages. Sheldon is consistently cited as one of the top ten best-selling fiction writers of all time. He died in California on January 30th 2007. The second cover my wife described as ‘disturbing’ It is for Flam O’Brien’s 1974 Picador edition of ‘The Third Policeman’ Again I’m not sure what it is meant to convey but it does have something going for it.

I was sad to get an email from Susan, Eric Tenney‘s daughter, to say he had passed away on the 6th of June with his funeral next Friday. We seem to have lost so many great artists in the last few years, artists who knew how to paint a book cover.