Pan Books

Pan Books
Parent companyMacmillan Publishers
Founded1944
FounderAlan Bott
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters locationClerkenwell, London[1]
DistributionMacmillan Distribution (UK)
Alliance Distribution Services (Australia)[2]
self-distributed (South Africa, India)[3]
Trafalgar Square Publishing (United States)[4]
Publication typesBooks
Official websitewww.panmacmillan.com
1961 Pan Books edition of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Goldfinger. Artist Sam Peffer's model for James Bond at the bottom was Pan's managing director of the time Ralph Vernon-Hunt.[5]

Pan Books is a British publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany.

Pan Books began as an independent publisher, established in 1944 by Alan Bott, previously known for his memoirs of his experiences as a flying ace in the First World War.[6] The Pan Books logo, showing the ancient Greek god Pan playing pan-pipes, was designed by Mervyn Peake. The later version was by Edward Young who also designed the logo for Penguin.

A few years after it was founded, Pan Books was bought out by a consortium of several publishing houses, including Macmillan, Collins, Heinemann, and briefly, Hodder & Stoughton. It became wholly owned by Macmillan in 1987.[7]

Pan specialised in publishing paperback fiction and, along with Penguin Books, was one of the first popular publishers of this format in the UK. Many popular authors saw their works given paperback publication through Pan, including Ian Fleming, whose James Bond series first appeared in paperback in the UK as Pan titles. So too did Leslie Charteris's books about The Saint, Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise, and novels by Edgar Wallace, Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Peter Cheyney, Georgette Heyer, Neville Shute, John Steinbeck, Josephine Tey and Arthur Upfield. Pan also published paperback editions of works by classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.[8] Another notable title published by Pan was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

During the 1950s and 60s, Pan Books editions were noted for their colourful covers, which have made many of them collectables, particularly the Fleming and Charteris novels.[8] Around 2,000 different pieces of cover artwork were commissioned by Pan between 1955 and 1965. Many of these artists remain largely unknown today. They include Rex Archer (1928–?), SR Boldero (1898–1987), Roger Hall, Edward Mortelmans, John Pollack (1918–1985), Sam Peffer, Dave Taylor (1921–1985), and Carl Wilton.[9]

The Pan imprint continues to publish a broad list of popular fiction and nonfiction. Among its current authors are Ken Follett, Kate Morton, Jeffrey Archer, Peter James, David Baldacci, Joanna Trollope, C.J. Sansom, Scott Turow, and Danielle Steel.[7]

  1. ^ "Pan Mac in 2019 move to Clerkenwell | The Bookseller". Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  2. ^ "Contact us". Pan Macmillan Australia. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  3. ^ "Pan Macmillan India". Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  4. ^ "Pan Macmillan | Independent Publishers Group". Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  5. ^ The Art of Sam Peffer, mi6-hq.com. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  6. ^ Alan Bott MC 1893–1952 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, tikit.net. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  7. ^ a b "Pan Macmillan Imprint History". Archived from the original on 9 July 2011.
  8. ^ a b The First Twenty Five Years of PAN Paperback Books: 1945 to 1970, tikit.net. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  9. ^ Larkin, Colin. Cover Me. The Vintage Art of Pan Books: 1950–1965 (2020)