PAN Fans Club

Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

PAN Fans Club - Let's talk about PAN paperbacks, the blog for those that do judge a book by its cover. Main site is at www.tikit.net or www.panfans.club

Category Archives: PAN Related

A Couple of Things

Just planning our summer trip continuing our journey along the south coast and this time it’s two weeks in Dorset having ‘done’ Kent, Sussex and Hampshire in previous years. As usual I’m trying to combine (PAN) business with pleasure and in the past have included visits to two despatch centres, ex PAN employees, places associated with authors and a couple of cover artists. So far I have one spealist printers line up so if anyone has any more suggestions please let me know. Also any recommendations for book shops but they seem to be few and far between.

While in Shropshire I picked up a copy of “Frenchman’s Creek’ by Daphne du Maurier which has never been opened let alone read. It was while looking for an artists name I spotted a monogram on the back which I think is made up of a G, a d and an A. I would surmise that this is Gino d’Achille.
Creek

PS Happy Birthday to my quote “long suffering wife”

Wilbur Smith Golden PAN Awards

I came across Wilbur Smith on Facebook and was pleased to see a picture of him holding one of his Golden PAN Awards for selling a million copies of “When The Lion Feeds” and I’ve scanned in some of his other book covers as well (I’ll be adding the mid 70’s and late 80’s George Sharp covers ASAP)
API particularly like the 1970 ones reused in the late 70’s but then spoilt by having one as a film tie-in which has happened before with the 1973 James Bond series or the 80’s Nevil Shute’s. The covers from around 1980 acknowledge the artist as Kevin Tweddell who is a member of Artist Partners along with fellow PAN Book cover artists Brian Sanders, Roger Coleman, Gino d’Achille and George Sharp.

“I don’t believe it!”

Quick blog this week as I have been away ‘up north’ for the ‘Great Goodbye’ where 6 A4 steam locomotives were brought together for possibly the last time as 2 are going overseas. Very impressive but very popular with over 72,000 visitors during the few days they were there.ShildonWhat also caught my eye last week was the chutzpah of a company selling on eBay. If you do a search for ‘Alan Bott’ in the Art Category with Title and Description ticked you may come up with 84 hits. They are all prints from the book “The Londoner’s England” which must have been taken to pieces. The price range goes up to £16.99 for one page (!!!!) when on AbeBooks you can buy a complete book for under £5, why not buy two as some pages are double sided?

A Loo With A View?

Astley Book Farm

Just planning a visit to the above when I remembered photos I took when I was last there. It is not everyday that I use my camera when visiting the toilet but this time I made an exception and if you click HERE you’ll see why.

Whilst talking about remembering, or rather forgetting, I don’t know if I ever put on a link to a page I made about PAN Books despatch centres after I visited a couple in 2012. Please ignore if you have already seen this but if not click HERE.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all PAN Fans everywhere.

Alan Bott, founder of PAN Books was editor of ‘The Graphic’ from 1926 to 1932
This Cover is by Frederick William Purvis who was born in 1867 and died at 22, Regent Rd on April 4th 1939. He was buried in Surbiton Burial Ground in plot 667. The burial ceremony was conducted by the prolific author Harry George Tunnicliff.

Graphic

Nevil Shute Norway Plaques

It’s always interesting to see blue plaques on buildings and this year I have spotted two for a PAN author, the stalwart Nevil Shute Norway in Howden and Southsea. Google gives me a third but I can’t find a picture of the plaque in Sydney showing its exact location, just a general view of the 47 plaques along the path from the Museum of Modern Art to the Opera House.. I think I’ll have to have a word with my Australian agent Bazeer (of the excellent Piz Gloria site) to look out for it if he ever finds himself around there.

Déjà Vu Again

Back in March I posted about a French book having the same picture on its cover as a PAN one. I have now come across another instance of recycling images.

I spotted that ‘The Saint’s Getaway‘ PAN G294 from 1959 has a cover that looks very much like a PEFF and which has been heavily edited for the Hodder 1965 copy of the same title. I find I have 6 Saint titles from Hodder in this series style and all of them look as thought the artwork has been acquired from elsewhere (Hodder was briefly part of a consortium that bought out PAN Books) Anyone recognise the others?SaintGetaway

Update to my posting about appearing in the papers. So far I have had all on no responses to my request for help in finding the last PAN title X705 ‘PAN Junior Crosswords Book 3’ but have been asked several times ‘What will you do when completing the collection?’ I have been working on this for a while, hence the Hodder titles for my other website www.tikit.org to which covers get added on an ad hoc basis.

Finally, as a tail note, not sure if there is a link between my exhibition at Walsall Museum and the news that has appeared in the papers this week, I hope not.

Fame At Last

I was recently cajoled into putting on a display to run for a month at our local museum where they have an area called ‘Your Corner’. I was Mr October with a selection of PAN related material following on from Mr September ’90 Years of the Radio Times’ and before Mr November Geoff Tristram an artist who designed stamps and banknotes. It started of locally and went wider and I’m pleased to say the newspaper coverage included a plea for the last known title I’m still after so fingers crossed. Interestingly none of the books shown in the newspaper photo are actually part of the collection being ones with ISBNs. Click on the blurb below to see some of the display.

Pan Paperbacks Display