Books
Peter O'Donnell was invited to write a novel to tie in with the 1966 film. The novel, called simply Modesty Blaise and based on his original screenplay for the movie, fared considerably better than the movie itself did. (It was also released a year before the movie.) During the following decades he would write a total of eleven Modesty Blaise novels and two collections of short stories. Several of the short stories either adapt comic strip stories, or would later be adapted as comic strips themselves, and there was frequent crossover of characters between the two genres. All the books, with the exception of "Pieces of Modesty", were originally issued in hardback and have since gone through numerous paperback editions.
Beginning in the early 2000s (decade), Souvenir Press began a series of paperback reprints of the Modesty Blaise book series, using the first edition hardback covers, and originally concluding with a reprint of Cobra Trap in 2006. Souvenir subsequently gained the rights to the short story collection Pieces of Modesty and issued their reprint of that book in March 2010, with a new cover design based on the original hardback cover from the first Modesty novel.
In 2008, Penguin Books of India reprinted the full series.
The 2012 Charles Stross book "The Apocalypse Codex" is a "tribute to Modesty Blaise", according to its author.
- Modesty Blaise (1965)
- Sabre-Tooth (1966)
- I, Lucifer (1967)
- A Taste for Death (1969)
- The Impossible Virgin (1971)
- Pieces of Modesty (1972)
- The Silver Mistress (1973)
- Last Day in Limbo (1976)
- Dragon's Claw (1978)
- The Xanadu Talisman (1981)
- The Night of Morningstar (1982)
- Dead Man's Handle (1985)
- Cobra Trap (1996)
O'Donnell's final book, Cobra Trap, is his most controversial, as the title story which ended the book concluded with Modesty's and Willie's deaths (and a hint of an afterlife), although the comic strip would last for several more years before it was retired; many longtime fans of the series refuse to read Cobra Trap in response. By contrast, O'Donnell ended the comic strip on a more hopeful note.
Read more about this topic: Modesty Blaise
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“My main wish is to get my books into other people’s rooms, and to keep other people’s books out of mine.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for “educational” toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a “message.” Often these “tools” are less interesting and stimulating than the child’s natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.”
—Joanne E. Oppenheim (20th century)
“O let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)