Doubleday hardcover, 1965
 
The 1960s were rife with super-duper-glamorous spies, weren’t they? James Bond was one of the earliest and also the best-known. Ian Fleming published Casino Royale in 1953, and the movie series started in 1962 with Dr. No. But there were many others: The Avengers, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, Mission: Impossible, James Coburn’s Derek Flint, Dean Martin’s Matt Helm—they were all over the place.

Emma Peel notwithstanding, the general arena was a bit heavy on the testosterone, so Peter O’Donnell invented “England’s fabulous, feminine answer to James Bond,” as one of the first published editions had it. (In Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega is reading the edition at the top of this post on the toilet just before he meets his untimely demise.)

In 1966 Joseph Losey directed Modesty Blaise starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp and Dirk Bogarde. Some of the book covers below use images of Vitti in the role.

Modesty Blaise never had the sales that James Bond enjoyed, but she was quite popular through the 1970s and 1980s, and Souvenir Press was publishing several Modesty Blaise titles as late as 2006. As you can see below, O’Donnell’s handful of Modesty Blaise titles (Modesty Blaise, Sabre-Tooth, I, Lucifer, The Impossible Virgin) were translated in many countries, including France, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Finland, and Brazil.

The Modesty Blaise Book Covers website is obviously indispensable for a post like this—alas, many of the images are a bit too small for use here, but I was often able to find reasonable facsimiles elsewhere on the internet. In some cases I liked the cover so much and couldn’t find a larger image so I just lived with the mild graininess, sue me!
 

Souvenir Press hardcover, 1965
 

Fawcett Crest, 1965
 

Doubleday, 1966
 
More ‘Modesty’ after the jump…