Back in 2019 I mentioned I had got a set of six James Herriot titles in a slip case from Canada. The interesting part was that they were still sealed in the plastic wrapper and I was debating whether or not to open them. Well I haven’t but luckily I spotted a similar set on eBay being sold by The Air Ambulance in this country. When they arrived I was really pleased to see they were all Canadian printings plus, and this is a rare occurrence, the edges of all volumes were green. Now there is much specualtion as to why this was done but no definitive answer but maybe it does make the cheap paper look more expensive especillaly when it starts to go brown as is suggested most often. I’ve added an update to the page so you’ll need to scoll to the bottom which can be found by clicking HERE

Peter Mayle, who was born on the 14th June 1939 and died on the 18th January 2018, was awarded a ‘Golden PAN’ (or ‘Golden PEN’ as the label on the back says!) in 1993 for selling a million copies of ‘A Year in Provence’ I have a photo of him receiving the award and have added it to the ‘Golden Pan Awards’ page. Mayle is also well know for the series oublished by PAN ‘Wicked Willie’ a humorous British cartoon character personified as a talking penis. He first appeared in the book ‘Man’s Best Friend’, published in 1984. 

After deciding not to pay the asking price for a first edition of ‘Owls in the Family’ by Farley Mowat with cover by Hans Helweg on eBay in Australia I then bought several for a penny off Amazon and as luck would have it one was actually a first.

Nearly seven years ago in a blog from September 2013 I referred to the two Papersculpture books PAN published, namely ‘The Railway Children’ and ‘Oliver Cromwell’ by Godley and Creme and mentioned there was a third lsited as PAN but wasn’t. It was actually published by Cato O’Brian around 1980 and was “The Charge of The Light Brigade” incuding a model of a Hussar. I saw a copy for sale last week and I don’t know how they managed it, but in spite of the seller using copious amounts of card, the carrier still succeeded in bending the corner! It was much bigger than I imagined and is complete with the model but I’m stll not sure if I’ll make it or not as I would like a photo but don’t want to spoil the book.

William Francis Phillipps was a prolific artist but very little is known about him. The Book Palace biography says “A very accomplished British artist and illustrator, famed for his paperback cover art. He painted the front covers for many Agatha Christie Pan Books paperbacks during the early 1960s and was an illustrator par excellence for several children’s titles (across the ages) including Look and Learn, Treasure, Once Upon A Time and Teddy Bear. He illustrated many other covers including a remarkable series of western paperback covers for New English Library in the 1970s by J T Edson as well as for the popular Edge and Adam Steele wild west series. He also illustrated many books including ‘The Mysterious World of Dinosaurs’ and the magazine series ‘Birds That Cannot Fly’, both in 1980. He was equally at home painting cosy children’s nursery rhymes, gritty western covers, Bible stories, vivid natural history portraits (mostly fauna, including Dinosaurs), and many other subjects” I recently acquired a mixed collection of his artworks most of which have yet to be idetified as to whether or not they were used as book covers but among them was a couple of sketches for ‘Spanish Stirrups’ by John Prebble in Penguin which was very remisiscent of a couple of Adam Steele covers I also have, the one I’ve included is ‘Crossfire’. Probably one of his most well know covers for PAN was “The Third Book of Horror Stories” which hangs on the wall above me. A sample of one of the mystery covers is below, I suspect, from the layout. it might be for a title page on a Readers Digest Condensed Book?

There will be a double bill of Hans Helweg’s sketches next week but in the meantime I had an email from Christine Isteed of ‘Artist Partner’ who have/had so many PAN cover artists on their books. Sad to say she was asking for contact details to pass on to another artist the sad news that Gary Keane had died. Gary did at least three covers in the ‘Horizons’ teenage fiction series. As an aside she also mentioned the artist Roger Coleman and how she was the model for the girl on the front cover of his Nevil Shute ‘A Town Like Alice’ I think you can still see the similarity now.

This weeks Hans Helweg artwork was a surprise as I was replacing a book on the shelf next to it when I realised I had some preliminary sketches for it. It was ‘Hot For Certainties’ by Robin Douglas-Home and after looking at the blurb on the back I think I might have to read it! I’ve included artwork for the boy and three versions for the girl but looking at the others I think there might be more in the dozens in the folders. Cecil Robin Douglas-Home was born on the 8th May 1932 and died on the 15th October 1968 and was a British aristocrat, jazz pianist and author. He was the eldest son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer. His uncle was the former British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home and his younger brother Charles Douglas-Home was the editor of The Times. He was first cousin of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, father of Diana, Princess of Wales.

After showing a maquette for the cover for ‘To Live  In Danger’ by Bryan Magee back in January I have since found a prelimianry sketch for the cover as well and have now added it to the page.

It’s good to see a new series featuring Michael Portillo on his ‘Great British Railway Journeys’ again albeit with a mask and social distancing. Last Wednesday he visited Camfield Place, the home of Barbara Cartland. She wrote over 700 books of which I think PAN published 130 and a lot the books in cases and artwork for covers can be seen on her walls. Apparently she was not poupular with artist, especially Francis Marshall, as she thought she was entitled to keep the artwork as her own.

Amongst the sketches and preliminary paintings I have in Hans Helweg’s folders are two and a half covers for Max Catto titles. The reason I say half is that I’m not sure if one was used although the characters look vaguely familiar but I’ll get to that in a couple of weeks after a bit more reasearch. Todays painting is for ‘I Have Friends in Heaven’ numbered M257 from 1968. It is interesting in that it is paintings on two card cut outs for the boy and the horses but I’ve not found a background yet.

Having mentioned Nevil Shute and his plaque in Sydney last week I was looking through my copies of the PAN Record and on the cover of number 32 from May 1961 they celebrated the 1,000th title published by PAN which just happened to be ‘A Town Like Alice’, the one title mentioned on the plaque. PAN certainly gave it a good ‘plug’ as it gets mentioned not only on the cover but on two pages inside.

Here is a question “Which PAN titles are shown in these photos of famous people”

Click on the photo to enlarge and click HERE for the answer to Sir Edmund Hillary
       

Click on the photo to enlarge and click HERE for the answer to Vivien Leigh

I picked up a copy of the 1967 edition of ‘Lorna Doone’ by R. D. Blackmore in the ‘Bestsellers of Literature’ series with a cover by John Raynes because it had a sticker on the front. Now normally stickers are a ‘no no’ especially vintage prixce ones that will not shift even with the old stanby of lighter fuel but this was different. In 1969 it was the Centenary of the publication of this classic and sveral items appeared with the same design. I’ve found a few and put them on the page.

I’ve added a third varrient for the 1968 edition of ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ with a cover by John Burningham. The Ist and 3rd being differing not only in price on the back but the featured ‘sticker’ says “Fabulous Film Coming” on the 1st but changes to “Now A Fabulous Film” on the later edition. The third varient doesn’t have prices on the back but now has the Scholastic Press logo for copies printed in Canada. 

Back to Hans Helweg’s works from his folders and this week the  preliminary painting is for the Pearl Buck title ‘Death in the Castle’ from 1966. It is clearly signed which is always a bonus when trying to attribute covers. Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was born on June 26, 1892 and died on March 6, 1973. She was an American writer and novelist and her novel ‘The Good Earth’ was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces”. She was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although PAN published many of her titles over the years I don’t think they actually published ‘The Good Earth’ I will put toether a page to show the editions I have soon.

Last year when I went to visit Sam ‘PEFF’ Peffer’s Great Niece Kathy I took a photo of the original artwork she had for ‘The Otter’s Tale’ by Gavin Maxwell which featured a prominent otter. This bore a remarkable similarity to the otter on the Maxwell covers by William Francis Phillips. It turns out my supposition about the cover being a composite was right and was confirmed by what Sam had written on the back of the artwork kindly photographed for me by Kathy.

Looking at my duplicate copies of titles I’m sorted to take to a National Trust secondhand bookshop when they reopen shortly I nearly missed a later copy of ‘Wuthering Heights’ with a cover by John Raynes (pictured left) I knew I had two from 1967, one with a TV programme tie-in sticker but then spotted the 1970 edition with a different title section and no letter on the spine, just a blank where there was one on the earlier edition. I’ve also included three others none of which have a visible name or credit to an artist on the back which is a disappointment. Does anyone have any idea?

I’m please to say Jules Burt continues to upload his excellent videos to ‘YouTube’ They cover a very wide and varied range of topics several of which relate to PAN Books so here are a few that you might have missed.

Original Book Cover Artwork

PAN Record Magazine

PAN Giants X101 to X200

PAN Giants X201 to X350

Just checking up on titles by Constance Heaven who also wrote under her maiden name of Constance (Aimee) Fetcher and Chritina Merlin. She was born on the 6th August 1911 in London and died on the 12th April 1955 at Kingston Upon Thames. I found I was one short of the five titles done as a wrap around cover by artist unknown namely ‘The Astrov Inheritance’ from 1977. I eventually found an image on Gumtress in Australia where it was in a bundle of other books. Luckily Carmen, the lady who was offering them, kindly agreed to sell me just the one for a very low price which became quite a bit higher after postage. I cannot understand how some sellers only want 3 Australian dollars via Skippy Post when other ask nearly 30 to post the same item using Australia Post?

A while ago I was looking for the few titles that Pan published with their usual red, pink and black logo but rather than the word PAN underneath it says Pavanne. Later editions drop the PAN log and just have the word Pavanne. The title I added was ‘Wanting’ by Angela Huth with a cover by Paul Sample who did so many for PAN including many of the Tom Sharp novels.

Thanks to Alysoun at PAN who managed to find me a postcard and double sided poster (24″x16″) for the 42nd anniversary of the ‘Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’ being first broadcast on the radio last year. This year in October it will be 42 years since PAN published the paperback edition and I’m just wondering if they will produce anything special for this?
 Click HERE to see side one and click HERE to see side two of the poster.