While hunting for Bond books I've found that there are several covers displayed on the web that don't actually exist. Two of the most obvious websites featuring these are Amazon and eBay, sometimes accompanied with the words "Stock Photo" beneath the image. Occasionally I've done further digging to try and determine if any of these covers were ever printed, but so far my efforts have proven fruitless. Here are some of the cover images. The ones on the left are what I term "prototype covers" and the ones on the right the final released cover image.

Comment from Raymond Benson - "That cover art was the original design for the paperback book and the publisher decided to change it at the last minute. That artwork had already gone out to the various online sites like Amazon. No book was ever published with that artwork." - March 8, 2008

Comment from Pegasus Books - "The covers with the girls were limited edition covers that were circulated in-house but were never used on the actual book jackets." - October 13, 2011

Comment from Penguin UK - "This cover was not published on any Modern Classics covers of Thunderball by Penguin Books Ltd (UK). It is possible that one of our foreign partners would have used alternative cover images, but it's certainly not one of ours." - May 24, 2012

Unfortunately I have no information on this alternative cover. I added a question to the artist Chris Garver's blog in August 2011 asking about this cover but didn't receive a response. I assume he was either too busy or didn't see the comment. But if anyone visiting has some information please feel free to let me know.

Again unfortunately I have no information about this alternative cover. However the cover matches the Berkley "Cold Fall" cover but was obviously unused.

Again another "Tomorrow Never Dies" movie tie-in prototype cover. No further information though.

There is definitely a rare hardback version featuring this cover owned by Matt Sherman (the text positioning is slightly different though) and shown on the SpyVibe blog. But many times on eBay you will see this image advertised as the "Stock Image" cover for the paperback novel. Strangely it's almost the same image as the one for the prototype "Tomorrow Never Dies" directly above !

Another movie tie-in prototype cover and again no further information unfortunately. John Cox on The Book Bond however noticed a striking similarity between this cover and one that was actually printed by Coronet for "Icebreaker".

As if six different variant covers for Penguin's edition of "Casino Royale" isn't enough, there's also another two cover images displayed on the web which at this stage appear to be prototype covers. Both the prototypes display the text "Soon to be a major motion picture" so were therefore designed around 2006, however the positioning and font of the text varies compared to the published edition. The two covers on the left are the prototypes while the cover on the right is the published edition, however at this stage I'm not discounting the theory that these two prototype covers might actually exist.

The prototype cover on the left was the cover for the hardback of "Shoot To Kill" prior to it being realised the gun portrayed did not correspond to the period of time in which the book is set. The cover on the right which was used for both the hardback release and the large edition paperback shows a different gun. Further information on this cover can be found at The Book Bond website.

In 2008 Penguin in the U.S. released "Quantum Of Solace" containing the complete James Bond short stories. It was published to coincide with the release of the film of the same name starring Daniel Craig. The copy on the left, which so far I've only been able to find as a stock image, features the "I.F." logo celebrating the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth 1908-2008. It matches the Richie Fahey Retro Centenary series also published in the same year. The copy on the right, which did adorn a copy of this novel, matches the Richie Fahey Retro series which was published in 2002. Despite so far only finding a stock image of the cover on the left I still hope one day to find it in the wild.