The Complete Works of Ian Fleming

Design and illustration for Fleming’s complete works, the 18 book set includes the 14 volumes of the James Bond novels, the non-fiction volumes The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities plus the children’s story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The final volume, entitled Talk of the Devil, contains rarely seen material including two stories, some of which is unpublished. The leather designs – which reflect elements of the original text – are crafted in goatskin and feature exotic details such as a diamond, crystals or a piece of eight.

Like most book covers we design we start by reading the book… from there we produced illustrations drawn by hand and then digitised into cutting templates for the binders Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe to reproduce in leather. The gold detailing and titles are also hand-stamped in 22 carat gold leaf. Little wonder then that this set retails at £14,000 and a set lettered M sold for £91,250 at Christie’s 50 Years of James Bond auction.