I was really pleased to hear from James Seabright who leads Seabright Productions of another ‘Golden PAN Award’ and this time given to Adam Kay for selling a million copies of ‘This Is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor’ Adam is touring the UK over the next few months with his show of the same name produced by James and, fingers crossed, my wife and I will get to see Adam (and maybe the award?) in Dudley in June.

It was my birthday last Wednesday and having spent the first part of it in A&E after my Iritis returned after five years I was really pleased to find what should have been a Christmas present to myself, but is now a Birthday present, had arrived a last. It is a boxed set of the first six James Herriot titles STILL in their shrink wrapped box. Now the dilemma is, as I bought them from Canada, do I open them to find out if they are they UK or Canadian editions, no clues on the outside? 

The couple of artist updates are for ‘Count Vronsky’s Daughter’ with a cover by George Sharp and ‘Storm Warning’ of which I now have a copy  and can confirm it is from 1993 with a cover by Adrian Chesterman.

It’s sad to report another artist has gone, this time it’s John Burningham who died on the 4th January but it wasn’t announced until last week. He illustrated many books but as far as PAN Fans go it is probably for his work for ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ that he is most well know. PAN published two editions in 1968, the first under the Piccolo imprint and the second as a film tie-in. Interestingly, although John illustrated the text in both, his work only features on the cover of the 2nd printing. Paul Wright is credited for the 1st.

It is a strange coincidence in that only this week I got a later copy of ‘Fiasco’ and was trying to work out the signature on the cover when I realised that this was also Paul Wright. I’ve tried to contact him to ask if he did the covers specifically for PAN or if they were recycled as he was a prolific marine artist, no reply so far. He also did the text illustrations for the Piccolo editions of the five Alexander Barrie novels (the above is an example)

I picked up a copy of ‘Learn to Paint Portraits’ by Roger Coleman which included the photo above. Roger painted covers for 1974 PAN Nevil Shute series which were also used for the US Ballantine editions. In the book he shows how he works on a portrait and I though one example looked familiar.It is of another PAN cover artist Michael Leonard whose self portrait hangs in the Ferens Art Gallery in Kingston-Upon-Hull except when we go to see it and all the portraits were replaced by contenders for the 2017 Turner Prize nominees. The book gave me a location for Roger and I’ve managed to track down an address for someone with the same name there and a letter has gone off. As usual fingers crossed but no response up to now.

Having been away vising our son in Kent since Christmas I was hoping to get back and find a pile of books waiting to be added to the blog but I’m sadly disappointed so for the first blog of 2019 and numbered somewhere around 370 it’s going to be almost a content free one. One book I was really hoping for was from the States I ordered it at the beginning of December so was not happy to get an email the day before Christmas to ask could I confirm the address they had was correct before they sent it!

I did get one book in the post on Christmas Eve from Germany which arrived a couple of days after ordering and cost me a lot less, including postage, than other copies from here in the UK. It was another Pearl Buck title from the 1973 series, this one was ‘Mandala’ with a cover that looks very much like one by Michael Johnson. I have few of his to query so I may send him an email soon.

We did have one sadness the day before Christmas Eve in that we lost one of the cats that live at the end of our road. There are a few which we all look after and Archie was a lovely friendly silver tabby but didn’t really want to live indoors. Sadly he got knocked down by a car and was dead when we found him. I think we were all in tears when Jeanette from across the road said “I’ve only just wrapped his present from Joey” (their cat) I don’t think you have to be a cat lover to empathise with this.

Here’s hoping that 2019 turns out to be a more relaxing year than 2018 with Brexit done and dusted.I have said in my last blog I voted to remain but now I just want it sorted one way or another. At least we’ve all got our PAN’s to take our minds off the real world and I can always go and bash some brambles on our cycle track for which we’ve just received a certificate for all our hard work in 2018!

Wishing you all a Very Happy 2019

Tim

PS Santa did let me down, no sign of X705 no matter how hard I looked under the tree!

While looking for some background information on Pearl Sydenstricker Buck I clicked on a link which gave me the message below. Does this mean when we Brexit the EU in March I can visit the site? At this point I would like to reiterate I voted to stay in spite of all the ‘old people’ being accused of voting to leave. Can we please just get it over and done with one way or another. Moan over.

I have been sorting my Pearl Buck titles and found four of her novels with the later style of cover. I’ve put these on a page HERE and am currently re-scanning all the earlier editions which will feature in a later blog.

I have a few copies of the paper sculpture book ‘Cromwell’ by Godley and Creme but another one I got recently has a ‘With Compliments’ slip inserted in the fold. I think it is a British company although I’ve not managed to track one down with the same logo. I bought it from Australia (It was too much of a bargain to resist even with the p&p) but as it only lists a UK price on the back I’m presuming it was from the UK.?

Here is this years offering of a Christmas themed title. I was going to include one of the puzzles but they are all so awful I can’t bring myself to choose the least worst! It’s 0330 312146 from 1989.

… and finally can I wish all my fellow PAN Fans a very Happy Christmas and that you get all you want off Santa. I’ve got fingers crossed for the last title I need ‘X705’ I’m sure he won’t let me down this year as I been really good – honestly!

As usual I’ve missed a significant date which fortunately this time is not of someone dying!

It was 50 years ago on the 17th December that the film ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ premiered in the UK (it was a day earlier in London and a day later in the US) 

HERE is the page that shows the contract between PAN and John Burke for the novelisation of the film.

I’ve had the first three titles in the Maurice Druon ‘The Accursed Kings’ series sitting on the shelves for quite a while and I had thought they were Maurice Druon probably the only ones PAN published as I remember doing an extensive search for others. So I was very surprised when I came across titles 4 to 6 also published by PAN all of which can be seen HERE (there was a seventh ‘The King Without a Kingdom’ but not published by PAN) I’ve also added a later Druon title not in the series.

I was please to see when looking through my edition of ‘Men of Violence’ volume 11 from the Justine Marriott stable it contained a reference to artist Jack Hayes whom I’ve mentioned before with some examples HERE. I recently picked up a Corgi Book of ‘The Long Wait’ by Mickey Spillane with a more interesting Hayes cover than the historical ones he seemed to paint for PAN. His life is still a bit of a mystery so if anyone has any background on him please let me know.

….. and talking of stables we went away in the camper last week and stayed in the middle of Warwick Racecourse while racing was on. Luckily the only bets I placed were virtual as I ‘d have been well out of pocket, in fact one of mine turned round half way and walked back! Luckily with the camper being right next to the railings we could watch from the comfort of our well heated accommodation.

Finally I noticed my copy of ‘Figure It Out’ says ‘Special Edition for Scholastic Publications’ on the back. I’m can’t think of any others like this, they are usually either a straight PAN or Piccolo or with a different cover for Scholastic. That’s something to look for when it’s not quite so cold in my library.

As promised last week here are the six earlier Alexander Fullerton titles published by PAN. I’ve listed them separately as they are not all on one page but under the number given by PAN in their eclectic system.

Number 365 “Surface!”
Number 433 “No Mans Mistress”
Number G199 “A Wren Called Smith”
Number G366 “The White Men Sang”
Number G530 “The Yellow Ford”
Number X316 “The Waiting Game”

Looking for a Graham Hurley book to actually read (I do like his Faraday series, just a pity he was killed off, mind you that didn’t stop Harry Hole coming back!) I spotted a couple with his signature. The first was the 1971 edition of ‘The Godfather’ which I didn’t have.

The second was a copy of his book ‘Sabbathman’ signed by Hurley and with great provenance. Normally this would be too late for my ‘PAN Man’ logo rule but I can always make exceptions (Another cover by Chris Moore)

Where did that last year go? It only seems like five minutes since it was this sites 18th birthday and here we at TiKiT’s 19th next Sunday. Looking forward to sharing many more blogs with you over the next twelve months.

Alexander Fullerton wrote nine novels in the ‘Nick Everard’ naval series from 1976 to 1984 of which PAN published them all (makes a change) from 1977 to 1986. There were various artists involved with three covers by Geoff Hunt, five by Stephen Crisp and one unknown. I have been in contact with both artists and Stephen replied;
“Hi Tim yes I did paint some of Mr Fullerton’s book covers – can’t remember which ones at the moment and not too sure either whether I got the artwork back!”
I replied and listed then titles and he came back;
“Thanks Tim – I do remember those titles and I know I have some of the originals so thanks for that!”
Geoff replied when I asked if possibly the unknown title was by him he said;
“Thanks for your enquiry. I did do some of the Alexander Fullerton covers but this isn’t one of them. Not sure who did it. It looks a little bit like Brian Withams’ style, but could be almost anyone!”
I feel more research coming on. I shall also re-scanis the earlier six Fullerton titles published by PAN hopefully for next week.

To tie in with the auction of Hugh Heffer items including his white captain’s hat, custom smoking jacket, silk pyjamas and Briar pipe with Playboy bunny logo I’ve scanned in my six covers for the ‘Cartoons From Playboy’ titles published by PAN. In the States there were a lot more and I’ve included a few on the page I found from the web.

I’ve also sorted out several Douglas Adams photos I’ve put into a folder over time and added them to his ‘Plug’ page..Not sure whose they are so hopefully not contravening someones copyright?