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I can understand the frustration.
I am, however, going to wave a scrap of the IFP flag here. They've put out some very nice limited edition collectables for not much money at all in recent years. I'm thinking of the Higson signed special edition paperback for a tenner, and the signed Sherwood second book with the little extras for the price of the standard book. They even put out a smart paperback of Benson's Zero Minus Ten for a tenner a year or so ago.
I can understand that people want more new literary Bond adventures, (as do I), but I think we should also recognise that IFP haven't tried to milk the literary Bond fans when it comes to collectable editions. In that respect, good for them.
Two days ago I ordered a hardback Casino Royale off IFP for £24.00. I think there's only 250 being printed. How much was that recent Folio limited CR edition? Five hundred quid or summat?
A decent article about the recent Bond book publishing and re-publishing. They don't use many of the continuation novels, is my only criticism of the article.
Also, do we think we'll get an announcement of some kind for James Bond Day (October 5)?
I think the endpapers design is really cool.
From what I've read elsewhere, these are the recently censored texts, so the text of the LALD is the old American one. The bonus material consists of letters by Fleming. Most have appeared in The Man With the Golden Typewriter, but a few are being published for the first time, though exactly which ones is still a mystery.
EDIT: Eight titles contained letters that previously appeared in Typewriter:
CR : 03/04/59, FA Taylor
LALD : 01/04/54, Winston Churchill
MR : 18/08/59, Major VP Tallon
DAF : 08/11/57, Miss M Marshall
FRWL : 09/07/56, Daniel George
DN : 14/10/58, W Speid
FYEO : 25/06/59, Miss Noella Moneypenny
OHMSS : 31/07/62, Michael Howard
As for the letters and other bonus material in the remaining 6 titles:
GF : 28/12/59, William Birnie (re: golf)
TB : The Domino Letter, originally published letter in the Pan paperback.
TSWLM: 18/04/62, Florence Taylor and 29/05/62, Kenneth Robinson. Both refer to criticism of the book,
YOLT: A one-page note detailing Fleming’s travel research for the novel, with thanks to friends and a short bibliography.
TMWTGG : 19/07/61. Answers to the "Six Questions" feature in Queen Magazine (you can read it here).
OP : 31/10/61, Captain EK Le Mesurier of the NRA (National Rifle Association), regarding weapons used in TLD.
I'd say the TSWLM extras sound most interesting, given how wounded Fleming was by the book's reception and how he tried to defend it.
In more interesting literary news, Talk of the Devil: The Collected Writings of Ian Fleming will be made available as a mass market edition on May 25, 2025. For more than a decade it was only available as an extra to the very expensive collected edition of Fleming's works from Queen Anne Press. A few copies were offered via QAP for purchase last year, but the new edition will be affordable and available to everyone.
Thanks for all that, a very interesting and informative post. I always feel that they're taking the easy way out by using "the American text that Fleming approved" with LALD, but I think I'm expecting too much to think they'd go with the original English text while we move through this period of intense sensitivity.
I doubt we'll see reprints of the original texts appearing in the mainstream anytime soon.
I won't be buying these beyond the Casino special edition, as nice as the covers are. And once again I say, pip-rah to the people at Folio editions, who stick to the original text, knowing that their readers are grown-ups and understand context. (Now get a wiggle-on with Octopussy and the Living Daylights, eh?).
I think the best Fleming extras we've seen thus far are the TV drafts in the first two Horowitz books. They were a bit special.
Just three chapters of LALD to go and then I can make a start.
Discussion thread about this subject here as you mention it so often.
I'm sorry if you don't like people mentioning edits on this thread mtm, but this is the thread for the new series of Fleming hardbacks.
And in all the fuss I'm yet to see anyone actually say what the edits are or how much has gone. Or even which books. If it's a single word in a couple of 80,000 word novels then I just can't much summon the enthusiasm to care despite the principle of the thing, any more than I can when you come across a character using a swearword in a Fleming and it says 's---'.
As we're repeating ourselves I'll say I have my copy of CR and it's very lovely.
I dug out a few other recent hardbacks of CR. Well, they're recent to me anyway, (I've been reading Fleming since the 70's).
In the picture below, top left is the Centenary Edition, which came out in 2008. Then the Folio edition, which came out in 2015, (mine is third impression 2018). Then the Vintage Classic, which came out via Penguin in 2017, and the latest. I think that mops up all the official hardbacks since the Centenary set, unless I've missed one?
A view of the spines, just to give you some idea of size. I've always liked printed boards on hardbacks, (ie no dust jackets), so I'm very pleased with my new CR. It's stylish, modern, and you'd look cool enough reading it on a train or plane. Which often can't be said of the Fleming reprints, to be honest.
Here's the sprayed page edges. They're doing Goldfinger with sprayed edges next. I haven't bitten on that one. Yet. It's tempting though.
I don't mind the disclaimer below. In fact, if it means the original text is more likely to be intact, then I welcome the caveat at the start of the book. . .
I've skimmed through this new edition to quickly check if I could see any edits. I couldn't. All the stuff that could be deemed problematic (Le Chiffre's ethnicity in the dossier, Bond's views on women as 'recreation' etc, and the "sweet tang of rape") are all still there.
The extra material is a single page facsimile of a letter Fleming wrote to someone who tried to correct him on his use of the French language in CR. The text of the letter is also in The Man With the Golden Typewriter book. Nothing much to get excited about there if you have that one, but a nice fun addition.
The casino chip endpapers are classy, and there's a carpet-beater on the back side. Perfect!
The Goldfinger SE you mention has gold-sprayed edges naturally, which is quite tempting!
That CR collection is awesome @ColonelAdamski history overtime. One thing that I would like in a future CR edition is the many people who wrote introductions over the years for it. I know Jeffery Deaver and Anthony Horowitz have for sure. And thankfully, no edits, IFP openly admitted that for Casino Royale.
The sprayed edges Goldfinger is limited to 250 copies, like CR. Casino has sold out now, but you can still get one of the Goldfinger editions.
When they did the Vintage Classics in 2017, it wasn't a complete series. They only put out CR, GF and LALD. It seems like they are the three 'go to' Bond novels for special editions. I can see why, they're amongst the most iconic films and best known titles.
So perhaps we'll see a sprayed edge Live and Let Die next?
IFP could have done it for this year, seeing as it is the 70th anniversary for it. I wonder if any non-Fleming books would ever get this treatment, aside from Colonel Sun.
Thanks for the info. I think the Union Trilogy could get a unique version of itself one day. I also consider The Man With The Red Tattoo as an epilogue to the story.
I've said before on this thread, if book Bond is your thing, IFP do put out some nice cheap collectables. A new, signed Bond book for a tenner is a lovely entry-level keepsake for a new Bond collector.
The gold-sprayed edge Goldfinger arrived this morning. I've just been dipping in, with a slice of prime Barry on the player.
I've seen lots of people pissing on this new hardback set on Fleming groups elsewhere, because of the edits. But I have CR and GF now, and I've yet to find one single edit. In fact, I purposely looked for the more troubling parts of GF to see what had been expunged, and it all seems intact, (notably Goldfinger's views on Koreans in chapter 11, and Bond's views on the same later, and the 'pansies of both sexes' bit is still there in chapter 19). From what I've seen so far, this set is far from butchered and censored as some hand-wringers on-line would have you think. Have people actually bought these and checked them out? Or are we knee-jerking?
By the way, the sprayed edge Goldfinger is limited to 250 copies, and as of this morning, they're still available from IFP. I'd have expected them to have been sold out by now, mine was on pre-order for a few weeks.
Edit - yup, they've still got them https://www.ianfleming.com/items/goldfinger-hardback-collectors-edition/
CR hasn’t been edited at all, I know that, the only other one I know has been taken back to its 50’s US edit is LALD, other than that I’ve no idea if there’s anything further in the way of edits in the range.
The gold edition looks terrific though, thanks for sharing the photo.
I forgot to use a 10% discount code I'd been sent when I ordered the sprayed Goldfinger from IFP. I sent them an email saying "I know it's my fault, and no problem if you can't, but I forgot to use my discount code, is there any way you can still apply it?"
I didn't hold out much hope, as the money had already gone out my account. But not long after, they put the 10% discount into my account. They didn't have to do that, did they?
Pip-rah for IFP.
Also, the £24 special edition Goldfinger (sprayed gold edges) is still in stock. At only 250 copies, I'm amazed there aren't more Fleming fans wanting this. Someone should tell them, the book is lovely, the text is intact and the end-papers feature graphics of Oddjob's hat, and crossed golf clubs, like some kind of perverse skull and crossbones.
In the words of Lux Interior, "if you don't dig that, you don't dig nuthin'!":