Skip to main content

Promo

After Benson (mentioned several times in previous posts) had finished his nine Bond books, there was a gap of six years before the next appeared, Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, which was published at the end of May 2008.

To drum up enthusiasm for the new book, The Times ran a promotion earlier the same month and, over the course of a week, gave away some paperback copies of Fleming's works. They used the, rather lovely, Richard Fahey-designed paperbacks, which had been published about 18 months earlier, with some subtle amendments to the covers, including mentioning 'The Times' on the spine and inserting an advert for the new book on the back cover. Books one to five (Casino Royale up to From Russia with Love) were offered in the week beginning Monday 19 May 2008, but on the previous Saturday (17th) the promotion was introduced with the final book, Octopussy and, unlike all of the others, it was amended to make it a much shorter offering. The original, 2006, book had included Octopussy and the other short stories, The Living Daylights and Property of a Lady. The promotional copy, with appropriately amended cover, included Octopussy and 007 in New York Interestingly, I think this was the first time that 007 in New York had ever appeared in book form in the UK. The first UK edition of 'Quantum of Solace', which collected together all of the short stories in one volume was, according to Gilbert, published on 28 May 2008 (Flemings centenary), and so was 11 days after the promotional version. The Sunday Times had published it in a special magazine several years earlier, and it had been in book form in US for some time in US as it had been included in the 1960s US publication of Thrilling Cities. So, a surprising debut for the UK market. 

Whilst I have all of the 'original' Fahey paperbacks, the six promotional books are separately collectable in their own right. As of a couple of eBay deliveries last week, I have them all now.

The alternate covers of Octopussy - Times promotional on the left and original Fahey on the right.

The Times promo set (note with spare From Russia on left to show back cover with ad for new Faulks book).

Popular posts from this blog

Thrilling

During our visit to Boston last week, I picked up a copy of Ian Fleming's Thrilling Cities at the Harvard Bookstore in the recently published William Morrow imprint. Given that it was written more than a lifetime (in Fleming's case) ago, it is remarkable that it is still in print, particularly given some of the views espoused within it, combined with the 'incidental intelligence' telling readers where to find five-star hotel rooms around the world for around £15 per night. Still, when there is a new run of the 14 Bond books, it seems like publishers know that if they tag on copies of this and the Diamond Smugglers, there will be enough nutjob Fleming completists (like me) to make it worth their while. The only challenge for the bookstores is to know where to shelve it to attract sales. Should they deliberately misfile it at put it with the Bond books, or do they take a chance of it languishing in what can be fairly haphazard travel sections. Thankfully the Harvard store...
Read more

Five

Saturday trip to an Oxfam bookstore and could have come away with more, but thankfully I managed to get online (via N hotspotting me) and so avoiding buying a bunch of duplicates. Pleased to spot the two Rivers of London novellas. I thought that I was doing well with getting these, as this brings me up to nine, but it turns out that I am a tad out of date as we are up to 16 now. Oh well, I will keep plugging away. As for the Jane Gardam, loved Old Filth and have started to pick up her books when I spot them. This is one of her earlier novels, and was nominated for the Booker, so much hope. Lee Child - 20 short stories - they will get devoured! A Sebastian Faulks paperback. I have the first edition, but now I have a reading copy too which was missing from my paperback shelf, as evident from the photograph. I've just finished his 'Fires Which Burned Brightly' which, as a series of essays, I picked up and put down over a quite a while. More of that another time.   
Read more

Heritage

After some fun and games with setting up an account (which J managed to figure out whilst I was otherwise occupied with a somewhat important prior engagement), we enjoyed participating in a Bond auction that was taking place in the US. We bid on about a dozen lots and were ultimately successful with four. We are now waiting to see how much is going to be added to our purchase prices for handling and international shipping costs ...! For the time being, here's a little clue as to what was purchased.
Read more