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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 2, 2008 10:17:55 GMT
For £1-50 I drop my pants too.
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Post by allthingshorror on May 6, 2009 16:47:22 GMT
Okay - the Pan Website is for want of a better phrase 'sorta finished' I thought as a celebration I would reveal what Van Thal looks like. Sorry for writing all over the photo - but it took me ages to find.. And the only obit I've found is here: www.panbookofhorrorstories.co.uk/#/vanthal/4528909936
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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 6, 2009 18:54:10 GMT
I don't like to be niggardly Johnnie but I'm still waiting for my fifty quid for this likeness
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Post by David A. Riley on May 6, 2009 18:55:23 GMT
I must say van Thal doesn't look a bit like I expected. Not a bit.
To be honest, he looks like a typical 1950s businessman, not the inspiration behind the Pan Books of Horror.
David
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Post by allthingshorror on May 6, 2009 19:09:27 GMT
It IS a bit of a let down, but is 10000000000% him. Maybe the other side of his face was hideously scarred. And Craig - im rejecting your picture on the gorunds of the tie. Too 20's looking...
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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 6, 2009 19:17:39 GMT
Damn. Apart from the tie - was I close...
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Post by David A. Riley on May 7, 2009 7:48:43 GMT
The weird thing is, for years (well, probably since I first started reading the Pan Horror series while I was still at Grammar School) I always imagined Van Thal as having a craggy face and a beard, rather like Peter Cushing in She, though Gawd knows why.
David
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Post by PeterC on May 7, 2009 19:46:48 GMT
He's a dead ringer for Bela Lugosi
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Post by lynnielynn on Jul 27, 2009 20:37:50 GMT
The weird thing is, for years (well, probably since I first started reading the Pan Horror series while I was still at Grammar School) I always imagined Van Thal as having a craggy face and a beard, rather like Peter Cushing in She, though Gawd knows why. David So did I!! And even though I've now seen a pic of him I still do.
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Post by fullbreakfast on Sept 30, 2009 22:06:25 GMT
I've been reading Jew Made In England, the autobiography of Anthony Blond. Blond was the rather louche Etonian publisher who brought us the works of Simon "Doctors Wear Scarlet" Raven, among others, and I unexpectedly found a tiny nugget about H. van T. On the principle that every little helps, here it is in its entirety: To promote publication of Feathers of Death, London's glitterati assembled in the committee room of the Reform Club, to which I had been introduced by Herbert 'Bertie' van Thal, a tubby chubby publisher whose wife was the inamorata of Nancy Spain. Small but slightly juicy. I had to check who Nancy Spain was; here's her Wikipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Spain
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Post by allthingshorror on Sept 30, 2009 22:16:31 GMT
Bertie was married twice - quotes follow from the essay I'm writing on Van Thal:
On January 17th 1934 The Times ran with the following announcement:
ENGAGEMENT:
Bertie van Thal, elder son of Mr and Mrs van Thal, and Joan – only daughter of Mr. Arthur Burkart of 18, Craven Hill Gdns W2 and the late Mrs Arthur Burkart. The marriage wasn’t to last, with Bertie remarking that ‘my marriage failed because I married a woman who was used to the attentions of rich men.’ They divorced and Joan H. van Thal went on to become a noted Speech Therapist at St. Bartholomews Hospital and died in 1970.
and
Van Thal married Phyllis Bayley, then editor of Harper’s Export Bazzar in 1947, and they remained so until his death in 1983. Phyllis went on to become the editor of Vanity Fair in 1962, with the magazine being published eighteen times a year. For several years after his death, Phyllis Mary van Thal answered several letters from authors from the Pan Book of Horror Stories series. She died in November 1994, aged 90.
I think Phyllis was probably the one yer man was on about. But thank you for enlightening me on that little nugget!
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Post by fullbreakfast on Sept 30, 2009 22:24:54 GMT
I think Phyllis was probably the one yer man was on about. But thank you for enlightening me on that little nugget! My pleasure. The launch party for Feathers of Death would have been in 1959, so it would definitely have been Phyllis he was referring to.
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Post by allthingshorror on Jan 19, 2010 12:55:41 GMT
Bertie Van Thal outside his Gower Street office. Bertie in Kingsnorth Gardens, Folkestone. Bertie on boat, November 1973
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 19, 2010 15:45:45 GMT
One very happy Johnny I would think
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Post by allthingshorror on Jan 19, 2010 19:18:35 GMT
Yup. one very happy Johnny.
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