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Current Ian Fleming hardback editions.

Designs by Michael Gillette.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE – Ian Fleming

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of this James Bond classic, Ian Fleming publications are offering a unique chance for budding designers to show off their skills – design your own cover for From Russia With Love and share it on twitter, tagging @TheIanFleming and you win a limited Bentley edition of Casino Royale, worth £750. The competition closes on the 18th April 2017.

In the meantime as inspiration, here’s a little Bond history...

Main image: Our latest edition designed by Suzanne Dean. The CMYK team designed the rest of the series - check out the link: http://vintagebooksdesign.tumblr.com/post/27630753986/vintage-007-behind-the-scenes

Small images, top left: The original cover for the first edition by artist Richard Chopping, published in 1957. It was Chopping’s first Bond book (the covers to previous books in the series had been designed by Pat Marriott and Ian Fleming himself), and therefore the first to adopt this iconic ‘trompe l’oeil’ style. The rose with a dew drop was part of Fleming’s request for the cover, and the gun (a Smith & Wesson .38 M&P special revolver with a sawn barrel) was sent to the artist at Fleming’s request by Geoffrey Boothroyd - the character that Major Boothroyd of Q branch was based on. Fleming had asked Boothroyd to send his favourite gun to Chopping, so it is not actually a gun that is wielded in the text.

Second: This is a US Library edition, published by Macmillan in 1957. The cover depicts the fight between Bond and Red Grant on the Orient Express in a really interesting style, referencing train schematics and an almost stencil-like use of silhouette.

Third: This cover, showing James Bond with Tatiana Romanova, is from the first UK paperback edition published by Great Pan in 1959. This depiction of Tatiana strays fairly significantly from the interior descriptions, however Bond is well represented, with his ‘unruly comma of hair’ and chamois leather holster. The cover suggests a pacey narrative through the placement of the speeding Orient Express at the base, and the strapline ‘Death-trap for James Bond’ is simple yet full of menace and intrigue.  

Fourth: The first US paperback of the book comes from 1960, published by Signet. Interestingly, there is no mention of James Bond himself on the cover, and instead we are treated to some enticing reviews: ‘Upper Crust Low Life…Mickey Spillane in gentleman’s clothing.’ Fitting this description, the imagery is more suggestive of pulp or noir than cold war espionage. However, the top left corner features the gun and rose motif from the UK first edition design by Richard Chopping.  

Middle left: Another Great Pan paperback entry, this time published in the UK in 1962. The Orient Express bisects the background of abstract, flame-like strokes, which in turn encircle and draw the eye to Tatiana in the foreground. Here she is depicted closer to how Fleming described, and the artist has emphasised her ‘Russian’ look through her attire. The book has received a new strapline: ‘DEATH WITH DISHONOUR is Russia’s sentence for JAMES BOND’, perfectly outlining SMERSH’s evil plan.

Second: In 1965, Pan released a new set of UK paperbacks with covers either by, or influenced by, Raymond Hawkey. The Fabergé egg with the film inside isn’t directly from the novel, however the plot revolves around Bond being caught (and filmed) in a honey trap set up by SMERSH so it is evocative of surveillance and deception within an alluring and emblematically Soviet exterior.

Third: This ‘still life’ cover was published in 1974, as part of a set of editions in which significant items from the plots of the books were showcased in a photographic portrait. The dagger is from the ‘gipsy wrestling match’, the Turkish delight is referencing Turkey (and the code word which Bond is told to follow in the novel). It also alludes to the honey trap orchestrated by Rosa Klebb in which Bond will be caught by Tatiana. As a departure from the previous editions, it is Klebb and not Tatiana who features on the cover, face pierced by the wooden fork. The arrangement also shows Turkish money and Turkish coffee.

Fourth: This edition from Thomas and Mercer was published in the US in 2012. The artist is Archie Ferguson, and the design fits perfectly into the series where the black and white pattern evocative of classic Russian decoration is highlighted by the brilliant red of the title and the 007 in the circle.

Bottom left: The Folio Society illustrated edition features a cover created by artist Fay Dalton. Bond boards the Orient Express, joining Tatiana who is eagerly awaiting him as they attempt to flee the evil clutches of SMERSH.  A plume of steam from the train obscures Bond’s face and suggests uncertainty and deception.

Bottom Middle: This edition was published in 2008 by Queen Anne Press, available as part of The Complete Works of Ian Fleming. Designed by Webb & Webb and finely-bound by Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, the Orient Express is shown speeding away from Istanbul, represented by Hagia Sophia. The red star, a symbol associated with Russia, is seen on the top left of the back cover.