A very helpful person from Souvenir Press has provided some more details about the new Pieces of Modesty paperback cover artwork, and about the series reprint in general.
Q: What made Souvenir Press decide to reprint the entire series as of the year 2000?
A: Souvenir Press decided to reprint the books in a uniform series after the US rights reverted (because we could then distribute them in both the UK and USA, making it economical to keep the books in print). All the Modesty Blaise books are in print, though occasionally some titles slip out of stock and we try to reprint any out of stock title as soon as possible (last month we reprinted 'Sabre Tooth', and 'Cobra Trap' the month before that).
Q: Tell us about the cover art, particularly for Pieces of Modesty.
A: Our new paperback editions of the Modesty Blaise books use the original cover art from the hardback editions. However 'Pieces of Modesty' was published in paperback by Pan without a hardback edition, so we didn't have an image to work with. We tried to keep to the style used on the original hardback covers of 'Modesty Blaise' and 'A Taste for Death', which both use illustrations of weapons on the cover rather than illustrations of Modesty (which are used on the other books).
The Pieces of Modesty cover was designed by a company called eDigital (whose designer is Jim Banting). The illustration of the moon with the lips inside it was taken from the original Modesty Blaise cover while the illustration of the bow and arrow was taken from an illustration library so there is no artist as such.
Q: Avid Modesty Blaise collectors have been trying to get their hands on the Penguin India boxed set, but it's near impossible to buy it from overseas... does Souvenir Press have any plans for a boxed set?
A: The Penguin India box sets look very good, that came about because Thomas Abrahams (who was running Penguin India at the time) had been a huge Modesty Blaise fan since his teens. I'm afraid that we don't have any plans to do such a box set though.
Thanks to Souvenir Press for the information!
'Pieces of Modesty' is currently available in the UK, and will be published in the US and Canada in the Fall. (You can use the Amazon widgets on the left to buy or pre-order.)
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