FLEMING, Ian.. Casino Royale.. London: Jonathan Cape, 1963, 1963.

Price: US$19374.07 + shipping

Description: Second edition, fifth impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To CD from Ian". Sir Charles Denis Hamilton was a decorated veteran of the Second World War, "an outstanding natural newspaperman", a close friend of Fleming, and a fellow board member at the Kemsley News Group. As a columnist, much of Ian Fleming's journalism was published in the Sunday Times when Hamilton was editor-in-chief. In 1962 the inaugural issue of the ST Magazine featured the James Bond novella The Living Daylights. Hamilton also championed Fleming's Thrilling Cities travel articles, later being the dedicatee of the book edition. The first James Bond novel, Casino Royale was originally published in 1953. After two reprints, the work was entirely reset in 1957 and featured a dust jacket design by Patricia Marriott (1920-2002). Marriott also designed the dust jackets for two further Cape-published James Bond novels, Diamonds are Forever (1956) and Dr No (1958). Her husband, Michael Howard (1923-1974), was Fleming's literary advisor and a director at Cape. The 1963 impression was the fifth impression of the second edition and is also noted by Gilbert as the "eighth printing". This was, crucially, the final Cape printing of the author's debut novel to be published during his lifetime. This copy is from the library of the Fleming bibliographer Jon Gilbert, with his bookplate and signed catalogue description loosely inserted. Gilbert A1a(8). Harold Hobson, Phillip Knightley and Leonard Russell, The Pearl of Days: An Intimate Memoir of the Sunday Times, 1972. Octavo. Original black boards, spine lettered in red, red heart device on front cover. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom black morocco-backed folding box. Minor foxing to edges, extremities of jacket a little rubbed, unclipped; a fine copy in a near-fine jacket.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom