Richard Chopping was a British writer and painter, best known as the original illustrator of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, including From Russia with Love and Goldfinger – a commission that had been declined by his former friend and subsequent arch-rival, Lucien Freud. His distinctive style and immaculate mastery of tromp l’oeil led Fleming – who was a…
By Jim Wright Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966), the last of Ian Fleming’s 14 novels and short story collections, is often considered the least of the lot. After all, the first edition weighs in at just 95 pages, and the title seems increasingly off-putting. That’s a shame because the two short stories of the…
An extraordinary collection of Ian Fleming manuscripts, first editions and ephemera go under the hammer at Sotheby’s on October 28th, 2020. The collection is entitled ‘James Bond: A Collection of Books and Manuscripts, The Property of a Gentleman‘ Of particular interest in this archive of treasure, relates to the dust-jacket of For Your Eyes Only, which…
This month we are delighted to talk to the San Francisco based artist Michael Gillette, who created a beautiful set of officially licensed James Bond book covers for the Ian Fleming Centenary in 2008, that was published by Penguin Books. 1. What is your favourite Chopping cover and why? I really enjoy them all, Chopping…
Article by Graham M. Thomas According to Robert Harling, the main topic of conversation when he first met Ian Fleming at a party in 1939 was typography; Fleming mentioned that he subscribed to Typography, a magazine that Harling edited. ‘I’ve been a subscriber to your magazine with its singular title from its very first number,’…
They say never judge a book by its cover, but book covers do a much of the heavy lifting to help to sell a book. None more so than Richard ‘Dicky’ Chopping’s iconic artwork for Ian Fleming’s Bond novels. His first commission for them was From Russia With Love and up until then, the previous covers…
Article by Mike Ripley I first met Reg Gadney five years ago, at a rather hectic Christmas party for regular freelance contributors to The Guardian. I knew the name, of course, from numerous excellent spy thrillers (more than a dozen) and as a scriptwriter, especially for his award-winning adaptation of Minette Walters’ psychological crime novel…
You know you are going up in the world when you score an interview with the talented Mr. (Mike) Ripley. His non-fiction reader’s history Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a survey of the boom in British thrillers 1953-1975 was published in May 2017 and we caught up with Mike in-between book signings to find out more. 001.…
The Spring number of The Book Collector will be a special issue on the theme “Ian Fleming & Book Collecting”. Fleming was the publisher of The Book Collector from its start and its principal shareholder from 1955 until his death. After five decades at the helm Nicolas Barker sold his interest in the periodical to James…
Today marks a very special day, for on this day in 1957 Ian Fleming met a young illustrator that was to prove pivotal in the lives of both men and the future of the James Bond novels. That illustrator was Richard Wasey Chopping. We spoke to one of Chopping’s trustees – Jon Lys Turner –…
When artists Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller died in their nineties, their friend Jon Lys Turner inherited an extensive personal archive. When he began to look through it, he discovered letters and other material that revealed Chopping and Wirth-Miller to be a previously missing link in the twentieth-century art world and pivotal figures in the…
Of Richard Chopping’s many beautiful illustrations, paintings and book jackets, none stand out more as his work for the 1955 volume 15 edition of the yearly The Saturday Book. These books of miscellany – published from 1941 to 1975, reaching 34 volumes – provided literary and artistic commentary about life in Britain during the Second World War…
Article by Patrick Vagg The campaign of a James Bond novel is often an important way to kick-start sales while also announcing to the world that the arrival of a new adventure of the super spy is imminent. The size and momentum of a campaign is often an indication of the expectation of the novel’s…
With the kind of work rate that Anthony Horowitz would be proud of, we are proud to publish an exclusive look at Gerry Wadsworth latest James Bond inspired piece – Trigger Mortis! First, let me state unequivocably, that I loved Trigger Mortis. In fact, I couldn’t put it down and read it in one go. Not…
The rich history of James Bond book cover jackets include such established artists as Richard Chopping, Raymond Hawkey and Trevor Scobie. For Anthony Horowitz’s 2015 Bond novel Trigger Mortis, the publishers chose a very different path in many ways. Not only did they choose to make the cover interactive, whereby it could be cut up to…
Review by Jonathan Hopson ‘Who was Robert Harling?’ asks Fiona McCarthy in her foreword. The answer is a man of mystery who played many roles – type designer, advertising executive, sailor, commando, novelist, architectural critic, magazine editor, lothario in fedora and tight trousers. Fellow typographer Ruari McLean summed him up as ‘one of those people…
This week we talked with Edward Milward-Oliver about Raymond Hawkey, the award-winning graphic designer and author who had a close association with Ian Fleming as well as Len Deighton. Artistic Licence Renewed: We have a special interest in the work of Richard Chopping, in particular his nine jackets for Ian Fleming’s novels. Raymond Hawkey’s work, with…
After a long search of intelligence gathering, Artistic Licence Renewed managed to track down the artist Trevor Scobie, who was responsible for three of John Gardner’s James Bond book covers in the 1980s. We are particularly thrilled to present this look back on these jackets by Trevor. *** “One of my first commissioned book jackets…
by MW Bewick It is only a matter of time. Sooner or later, if you get talking to the locals in Wivenhoe, Essex, someone will namedrop Richard Chopping: “Oh, Dicky and Denis,” they will say. “You don’t know about Dicky and Denis? If you’d been here when they were here… Wivenhoe was much more, well,…
Now pay attention literary 007 fans … this just in from top brass. Today marks what would be Ian Fleming’s 107th birthday and it could not be more fitting than for Ian Fleming Publications in conjunction with Orion Publishing, to announce the title of the new James Bond continuation novel – Trigger Mortis! The author,…
Artistic Licence Renewed 