James Bond - The Secret Agent: November 2020

Monday 9 November 2020

This is what James Bond collecting is all about (for better or worse)

When collecting James Bond, most of us feel the need to be a completist. Living in Sweden the only local collectables are movie posters and books. For many years I thought that my Swedish book collection was complete. I have every edition of every James Bond book released in Sweden.

But when I showed a photo of my Casino Royal from 1965 a blog reader living in Sweden contacted me saying that his copy was spelled more correctly Casino Royale also released in 1965.

It is obvious that the misspelled version was released first. My guess is that is was printed in more numbers then the later corrected version.

It is always fun when you find something new for the collection. This book cost me around £10 including postage. There is not often a cover is being found with a misprint on it. I would love to know who found out that the book was misspelled. What if it was Glidrose Publications that told Swedish Bonniers to change it.

Sunday 8 November 2020

Folio Society has released CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG

James Bond author Ian Fleming was hospitalized for living a way to hard of a life after High court trials regarding the book release of Thunderball. At the hospital he came up with an idea for a children's book for his son Casper. That book became three volumes and was called Chitty chitty bang bang.

The first out of three volumes came out on October 22 1964. Sadly Ian Fleming never had a chance to live long enough to see them published since he died on August 12th 1964.

When the book was released it also carried drawings by John Burningham.

56 years later Folio Society has released their own version of the book to complete the James Bond series they have produced book by book for some time now.

The book looks fantastic and comes in a green slipcase and I am truly glad to have this in my collection. I do not own a Chitty Chitty bang bang first edition (except the Swedish one) since I find them hard to come by in good condition.
The book also have some special features including behind the scenes material and sketches by John Burningham for the books written by Fergus Fleming.

Therefore I find the Folio Society edition a very nice release for anyone in the same position.

The Folio Society edition of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, including a new afterword by Fergus Fleming and original illustrations by John Burningham, is available exclusively from www.FolioSociety.com

Illustration © John Burningham 1964 from The Folio Society 2020 edition of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Illustration © John Burningham 1964 from The Folio Society 2020 edition of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,

Sunday 1 November 2020

Fantastic Sean Connery book covers

It was with deep sorrow every Bond fan across the globe learnt that the first (if not counting Barry Nelson in the 1954 version of Casino Royale), and to many the best James Bond, Sean Connery passed away on October 31th, 2020. He reached the age of 90 and had a very long and successful career from the day he signed on to play James Bond in Ian Fleming's DR. NO.

To honor his memory I wanted to share some fantastic Ian Fleming book covers from Sweden. They were released during 1965 in a series called "Zebra special" and had all paintings of Sean Connery on the cover. The paintings were done by Yrjö Edelmann (1941-2016) and are just fantastic to look at.

Below you can find the cover designs using Connery's likeness.