Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Benson's BOND - UK hardcovers

Over the weekend I shared the Raymond Benson James Bond U.S. hardcover first editions. Here now are the UK hardcover firsts from Hodder & Stoughton.

The Hodder books featured striking cover art with series art established on the 1995 Coronet paperbacks and first used on a hardcover with John Gardner's COLD. However, the publisher changed it up with the last two books, producing covers that were a bit disappointing in comparison (IMO). Hodder also published Benson's three film novelizations in hardcover. Tomorrow Never Dies remains the rarest of all the Benson UK firsts.




Publication dates:
Zero Minus Ten – Hodder & Stoughton, April 3, 1997.
Tomorrow Never Dies – Hodder & Stoughton, November 6, 1997.
The Facts of Death - Hodder & Stoughton, May 7, 1998.
High Time To Kill - Hodder & Stoughton, May 6, 1999.
The World Is Not Enough – Hodder & Stoughton, November 18, 1999.
Doubleshot - Hodder & Stoughton, May 4, 2000.
Never Dream of Dying - Hodder & Stoughton May 3, 2001.
The Man With The Red Tattoo – Hodder & Stoughton, May 2, 2002.
Die Another Day - Hodder & Stoughton, November 7, 2002.

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, those last two, not so hot. I'm sure the designers had various constraints and limitations placed upon them, but NDOD is a tad college textbook-ish and formless, the individual elements sort of thrown on to see what would stick (nothing did), and TMWTRT, a little on the cheapy side. True, by 2002 the mid-90s Coronet JAMES BOND 007 design had probably run its race and it was time for a refresh, but these two may have handed the US their first ever victories in the "UK vs US best Bond first edition cover" contest.

    On the plus side, the ZMT cover is lovely, and I like Doubleshot's as well.

    Also, props to RB for pulling "double duty" and doing the novelizations on top of his annual "proper" Bond output. I can't imagine that the novelizations were particularly creatively fulfilling for him (I know he got paid for them, but still).

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  2. The UK Doubleshot is my favorite Benson cover. (Though ZMT and HTTK are also great.) You're totally right about the last two though. What a letdown compared to what had come before.

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  3. Hi all
    I’m a keen collector but who has many of my ‘spares’ to sell. I have an entire Raymond Benson set if anyone’s interested? How’s the best approach to increase exposure of what I have to sell?

    ReplyDelete

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