Thursday, March 15, 2012

VINTAGE TO PUBLISH ALL 14 ORIGINAL IAN FLEMING JAMES BOND NOVELS THIS SUMMER


Big news today from Ian Fleming Publications! All 14 original Ian Fleming James Bond novels will be republished this summer in two new sets and as eBooks by Vintage Books. Vintage is the sister imprint of Bond's original publisher, Jonathan Cape, so this is a homecoming of sorts. Here is the full press release:


JAMES BOND RETURNS HOME
VINTAGE PUBLISHING ACQUIRES BOND BACKLIST
• Vintage Books has acquired the ten year license to publish Ian Fleming’s fourteen James Bond books
• Vintage to publish backlist in ebook format

The Random House Group and Ian Fleming Publications Ltd today announce that Vintage Publishing, a division of Random House, has acquired through Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown the ten-year licence for Ian Fleming’s entire James Bond backlist in print and ebook format, along with Fleming’s two non-fiction titles.

Vintage Books is the sister imprint of Jonathan Cape, who were the original publishers of Ian Fleming’s Bond fiction and published Casino Royale, the first in the series of fourteen Bond books in 1953. The novels have now gone on to sell over 100 million copies worldwide and have been the inspiration behind the world’s longest-running film franchise. Jonathan Cape was also the publisher of the first ever official Bond novel written following Fleming’s death in 1964. Kingsley Amis took up the mantle in 1968 writing Colonel Sun as Robert Markham. Bond novels have since been written by John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks and Jeffery Deaver 
Corinne Turner, Managing Director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd comments: ‘We are delighted to be reuniting James Bond with his original publisher. This new deal, incorporating both print and ebook formats, represents a significant step-change for Ian Fleming and his work.’ 
Richard Cable, Managing Director, Vintage Publishing, acquired exclusive rights to the Bond novels in the English language worldwide exc USA/Canada. Cable commented: ‘Bond, James Bond. Ian Fleming’s famous Secret Service agent 007 remains one of the most iconic of all literary creations, and continues to thrill new and existing readers alike. We are excited to welcome Ian Fleming’s books to the Vintage list for the first time and to reunite him with Jonathan Cape, the original publisher of his work. We are hugely looking forward to working with IFPL to relaunch the list in 2012, a year which marks the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film, Dr No, and sees a new 007 adventure hit the big screen.’ 
Vintage Publishing Sales Director Tom Drake-Lee, a lifelong fan of the Bond novels, will head up the publishing team across all publications as Ian Fleming Brand Manager. Two series styles will be created for the fourteen books: one under the Vintage paperback imprint and one in Vintage Classics. This is the first time that an author’s entire fiction backlist has been published under both imprints. The publishing programme will be underpinned by consumer insight to bring a new generation of readers to Ian Fleming’s work and engage people who have recently discovered the Bond brand through the films and computer games.

Jonny Geller, Managing Director, Curtis Brown comments: ‘2012 is the year of Bond - a new movie and a new home for Ian Fleming’s backlist. James Bond never sleeps and we promise an exciting programme of innovative publishing ventures aimed at the next generation of readers for Ian Fleming’s greatest creation.’ 
Random House will take over from Penguin as publishers of the James Bond novels in April and will publish the Bond backlist in ebook and print format in summer 2012.

I can't wait to see the cover art for these!

Thanks to IFP and Coleman-Getty for giving me the jump on this excellent news.

UPDATE: THRILLING CITIES and THE DIAMOND SMUGGLERS included in Vintage deal

17 comments:

  1. This intrigues me:

    "The publishing programme will be underpinned by consumer insight to bring a new generation of readers to Ian Fleming’s work and engage people who have recently discovered the Bond brand through the films and computer games."

    ​This might scare some purists, but this actually excites me. I hope they do some very dynamic action-based cover art (is it too much to hope for the image of Daniel Craig?). We've had a lot of classic and precious treatments of these books -- and we will have that again here with Vintage's other "classic" set, so don't freak out on me for saying this -- but I am totally up for some art that, frankly, dumbs it down a little bit, plays up the red blooded Bondian elements and goes a little commercial. Whatever the equivalent of the pulp cover is today. Bring it! Make 'em look a little fun for crying out loud. Because they are fun. :)

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  2. Most likely it will have a silhouette of a man with a gun and some non-animated object that is referenced in that particular novel.

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  3. Oh wow! That IS exciting news, and unexpected. While, as your excellent paperback round-up posts prove, the Bond catalog has changed publishers many times over the years, Penguin seemed to be doing very well with them. They'd kept them in print in the US, and they'd changed up the covers quite a few times in the UK. And personally I enjoyed the appropriate irony of having Ian Fleming and John le Carre, the two greatest spy writers ever, representing opposite ends of the genre, in the same stable... but that only lasted a year, as it turns out, since le Carre just went to Penguin last year. Oh well.

    In with the new! It's exciting that we'll be getting new covers, and exciting that there are two lines. Does this release refer to the UK, the US or both? Will we have both lines in America, too? Penguin only did the Penguin Classics line in the UK for the most part. The computer game reference definitely makes it sound like they'll go modern, at least with the standard paperbacks. I'm all for modern, but unfortuantely I think the "equivalent of the pulp cover" today is a boring Photoshopped image. But I'll give Vintage the benefit of the doubt, because they almost always come up with cool designs! I love what they've done with Hammett and Chandler over the years. They've rejacketed those lines a few times, but always in a way that reflects their original era while feeling modern--and always classy. I can't wait to see the new look on The Book Bond, which I'm sure will give us our first glimpse!

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  4. I'm also excited that they mention the non-fiction titles. But I wish they also included Talk of the Devil, that third non-fiction title collecting some of Fleming's journalism that was published as part of the ultra-limited, ultra-expensive Queen Anne Press line! I really want to get my hands on that! (And I can't afford QAP any time soon.)

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    1. I hear you. It's murder that we can't get our hands on a Talk of the Devil. I have a feeling they will never make that available as a regular release.

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    2. I agree. £1500 for a book that's brand new is ridiculous and borderline extortion. Rather than sell 5 a year they should make a paperback and sell thousands.

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  5. Just a question but what are the titles of these 14 books? I want to buy the James Bond books but don't know how many there are and which ones are from Ian Fleming and the ones from other writers. So my question is what are the titles of the 14 in this set and how many other bond books are there total and are they as good as the Ian Fleming ones?

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    1. Casino Royale (1953)
      Live & Let Die (1954)
      Moonraker (1955)
      Diamond Are Forever (1956)
      From Russia With Love (1957)
      Dr. No (1958)
      Goldfinger (1959)
      For Your Eyes Only (1960)
      Thunderball (1961)
      The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
      On Her Majesty's Secret Servive (1963)
      You Only LIve Twice (1964)
      The Man With The Golden Gun (1965)
      Octopussy (1966)

      There are at least 50 books total. Some quite excellent. Hard to compare them to Fleming as they are classics.

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    2. Thanks for the info. So 50 plus the 14 or 50 including the 14? Thanks again.

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    3. Here you go, Mr. Bond. I've whipped up a basic bibliography. Haven't included the more ephemeral books and graphic novels, but all the major books and shorts are here.

      http://www.thebookbond.com/p/bibliography.html

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    4. Wow thanks for that. Now I have my shoping list. Thanks again for it. I just hope I can find them all, seeing as I'm in Canada.

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  6. Sigh . And still NO French Publishing House interested into Fleming's oeuvre .

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  7. I would be excited if they bring the 14 novels on the market illustrated by 14 different artists. Boring again.

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  8. Try selling your E-books on ebay.

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  9. This is good news. I too am particularly praying that the cover art is more memorable than some of Penguin's output. Their "vintage" run from 2006ish was good, but the move to the contemporary fiction format size and the photo covers was dismal. That set of 'cartoon-looking' girls was a sad rip off from the movie poster of CR'67. Fleming really deserves better. I'll cross fingers that Random House and their subsidaries know what they are doing.

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  10. I liked the line of "cartoon looking girls..." but didn't really find them very cartoony. I thought that was an appropriate Sixties-styled line to complement the Fifties-style line of Fahey covers. (And you could do a lot worse for touchstones than Robert McGinnis!) I liked SOME of the photo covers, but agree that some were definitely dismal, like YOLT.

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  11. It would be interesting, and a nice bit of cross-merchandising, if they used a variation of the original motion picture posters for the covers of the new books. It would actually force many of the film-collector fans to finally buy a real James Bond book.
    Sadly, the image of Daniel Craig would have to be included, but, thankfully, only for one title.

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