007 is well covered in fascinating new show

Bond Bound ***
City Arts Centre

MARKING the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, the City Art Centre is playing host to a fascinating exhibition of book covers, film posters and a wealth of other memorabilia surrounding, but not limited to, that smoothest of spies – Bond. James Bond.

The exhibition tracks the changes that the covers have gone through over the years. A dizzying array of actual books are contained in an enormous cabinet.

Laid out randomly, it serves as proof that the stories can inspire all manner of visual interpretation.

The very earliest hardback editions, however, carried no cover illustrations at all, opting instead for gaudy typography with perhaps a few symbols here and there.

With one novel per year from 1953's Casino Royale to 1966's posthumously released Octopussy, publishers like Jonathan Cape, Pan and Penguin had a wealth of treatments which they could apply throughout the decades, in countries all over the world, and they generally pushed the boundaries of acceptability at every opportunity.

Initially, the first illustrated covers tended to depict guns or knives, taking their cue more from the title than anything else.

These were created by the late Richard Chopping, and the exhibition displays several development drawings, leading to the finished cover of From Russia With Love.

Not even Bond was immune to the effects of the psychedelic 60s. The tone of 1967's spoof movie version of Casino Royale, featuring David Niven as an older, retired Bond, together with the garishly painted naked girl on the Pan edition of Fleming's original novel, surely informed and influenced the more recent Austin Powers films.

The 2002 Penguin editions went for a unified, busy look, dividing the cover in three with the title at the bottom and the inevitable – and usually naked – glamorous seductress taking up the lion's share of space. Cleverly modern, yet old fashioned at the same time.

The 2008 editions of the novels have a slightly toned down version of the 60s look. With limited palettes and white backgrounds, seductive young women all but bat their eyelids at the prospective readers, coaxing them into entering the world of Bond. Giant reproductions of these images are featured, working their persuasive magic.

In addition to the main focus of the exhibition, a section of the room is given over to images and memorabilia exclusively on show in Edinburgh, including a series of John Burningham's original illustrations for the novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which was also written by Fleming.

Bond Bound gives the viewer a better understanding of what made Fleming the man with the golden touch.

• Runs until September 14.