This edition of Thunderball from publishers Jonathan Cape is said to be rare, but it wasn’t expensive. While some vendors out there try to sell it for two-hundred dollars, ours was twelve. This was Fleming’s eighth Bond novel, and it has two publication credits, one from Glidrose Productions, the other from Jonathan Cape, both 1961. We’re not going to try figuring that out other than to note that this is a Book Club edition, and the second publisher probably came on board for that reason. The book’s background contains other complications. It was the novelization of the Thunderball screenplay, which hadn’t been filmed yet, and multiple people had a hand in it. Fleming received sole credit initially, then after legal challenges Thunderball producer Kevin McClory and screenwriter Jack Whittingham were added later.
We were drawn to this edition not only by the price but by the cover art, though the hardback we posted in this group has an even better front, one could argue. The creator on this edition isn’t credited, and we can’t decipher the signature at bottom right. It’s “cut-” something, maybe “cuthbert.” No idea, really. Though the art wraps onto the spine, the rear advertises novels by other authors, so there’s nothing notable going on there. Why are there two 1961 editions with different art? One source suggests that the original Jonathan Cape art was damaged when the Book Club edition was being put together, so a rush job was commissioned, and that’s what you see here. Sounds plausible, and it’s a possible reason for the lack of artist attribution.
Anyway, Bond, who admits to going through half a bottle of hard liquor and smoking sixty cigarettes every day, is sent by his bosses to a British rejuvenation retreat called Shrublands. There, of all places, he stumbles upon hints of a secret international organization that will turn out to be SPECTRE—Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion—headed by the soon-to-be-infamous Ernst Stavro Blofeld. SPECTRE subsequently hijacks a military plane and its two nuclear bombs, then threatens to use them unless paid £100,000,000. That would be nearly £3 billion today. The mission undertaken by the Western powers to find the bombs is codenamed Operation Thunderball. Bond is sent off to the sultry Bahamas to try picking up the trail of the hijackers there.
The book’s resemblance to the movie is strong of course, but there are a few small surprises even if you’ve seen the film. Example: Did you know the character Domino—played by Claudine Auger in the film—has one leg shorter than the other? Just an interesting note. Overall, in cases of cult literature it’s useful to turn to fans, and Bond fans rate Thunderball after eight other books, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. We wonder whether the known fingerprints of two other participants in the forms of McClory and Whittingham downgrades it on principle for some Bond-o-philes. While it’s true various ideas would have come from that pair, the writing is still Fleming’s. You get a tropical setting, underwater action, a wily villain, and in the end it all makes for a very, well, Bond adventure.
