The new James Bond Folio Society release is...

It is that time of the year again one The Folio Society releases a new James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. It's a bit like christmas. Your parents are going to give you that present you wanted.

This time it is Thunderball that are being released. The one Fleming book with all the controversy about who actually wrote the story. Was it Fleming or was it Jack Whittingham or Kevin Mcclory. Or was it all of them together.

It was supposed to be the first film in the series but due to the ongoing lawsuit regarding the above the filming of Thunderball had to be delayed. In the end Fleming got the rights to the novel and Kevin Mcclory got the rights to film the story. I believe Jack Whittingham sold his parts of the rights.

Also in the settlement between the three parties it was agreed that in ALL forthcoming prints of Thunderball it had to say "The story is based on the screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming."

This must have been sorted out in some way or some publishers just did not care because in Thunderball novels released as early as 1966 the acknowledgments disappeared from some publishers. Others keep it as it should be. It would be VERY interesting to know why the acknowledgments are not in all later printings. Might it have to do with the film version of Thunderball being released in 1965? I would have loved for The Folio Society to keep it in. It is a big part of the history of Thunderball as a novel.

If you were to look in the PAN paperbacks from 1964 it clearly says: "The story is based on the screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming." To my knowledge. The latest release to carry this acknowledgment is the Blofeld trilogy from USA in 2010. 

Now let's forget about that!

The new Thunderball novel release is as beautiful as the rest of the books and the binding is the same. Fay Dalton has done seven drawings for the book containing Bond, Largo and Domino.

The book is on sale March 6, 2019. Price £36,95

Illustration ©2019 Fay Dalton from The Folio Society edition of Ian Fleming’s Thunderball

Illustration ©2019 Fay Dalton from The Folio Society edition of Ian Fleming’s Thunderball

The Folio Society edition of Ian Fleming’s Thunderball, illustrated by Fay Dalton, is available exclusively from www.FolioSociety.com

An interesting James Bond Pan Books advert

I was looking through Instagram and the hashtag #IanFleming and I found an interesting advert for the tie in edition of From Russia With Love from Pan Books that was released in 1964.

This advert seems to come from some sort of book dealership magazine and seems to focus on the Australian market.

The ad says that the book has already sold more then one million copies. and From Russia With Love is one out of six books to ever have reached that high. In other words Ian Fleming's From Russia with love was selling like crazy.

The series of nine Fleming books is also said to be Pan Books best sold series as of 1964.

Pan Books are ending the advert with suggesting that the Australian booksellers will order displays and promotional material to increase sales of their books. These kind of displays should off course be very interesting for us the fans to own today.