Immersed as we are in researching 1970's women at the moment we feel that we have to put up a picture from a series that made a great impression on us in the late 1970s. These were the 1977 re-issues by Panther Books of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. Commissioning a giant mock up of a golden 9mm automatic pistol (which they used for all the titles not just this one) they draped a collection of immensely seventies models on said prop for a really striking (if unsubtle) series photographed by Beverley Le Barrow.
Le Barrow did many other covers in the seventies and eighties from subtle, for Dick Francis, to even less subtle than these (such as this one for a Xaviera Hollander novel).
This particular cover was one of our favourites from the Bond series as we thought the young lady was rather fine and we liked her peek-a-boo dress!
The current paperbacks (which Agent DVD gave us for Christmas) have these rather 1950s style covers although I feel that this one is not as strong as some of the others in the series.
Rather more striking are the ones from before the current editions. They are all much more interesting than the original first edition however!
At the time the 1974 film came out the book was re-issued with a film tie-in cover featuring Britt Ekland and Maud Adams. More of these ladies anon.
