Fleming, Ian

Goldfinger. London: Cape, 1959.



8vo (7 3/8 x 5 in; 188 x 125 mm). Publisher's gilt-lettered black cloth, gilt and blind-stamped skull (gold coins in for eyes) to front cover in pictorial dust-jacket designed by Richard Chopping; head of spine panel lightly creased and tiny spot of abrasion just under the "F" in Fleming to front panel, a little faint scattered spotting to rear panel.

Hiney, Raymond Chandler A Biography; Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming.

Fine copy
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First edition of the seventh Bond title, An outstanding presentation copy from Fleming to Chandler and a wonderful example of the friendship between two masters of the thriller, the creator of James Bond and the creator of Philip Marlowe.

"To Ray / with much affection / from / Ian"

Ian Fleming had long admired Chandler's work before their first meeting over a dinner in London at Stephen Spender's in May 1955.  His wife's death the year before was still a fresh wound for the visiting Chandler and he had resumed hard drinking in his mourning: "He was very nice to me and said that he liked my first book, Casino Royale, but he didn't really want to talk about anything much except the loss of his wife ..."

While such honest grief might usually be terribly awkward, for Fleming, Chandler "expressed himself himself with a nakedness that embarassed me while endearing him to me." (Hiney, Pg. 221). Fleming treated Chandler with "deference he reserved for very few" and greatly respected his advice, so much so that the present work might very well not have been written without Chandler's input regarding the character of Bond in general.

Fleming and Chandler began their somewhat unlikely friendship ("Two more different characters than the creators of Philip Marlowe and James Bond it would be hard to find ..." Pearson, pp. 231-232) at a crucial time in Fleming's literary career.  He had returned from his Jamaica estate, Goldeneye, in March 1955, with the finished manuscript for Diamonds are Forever and the feeling that he had exhausted the potential for 007. " Pearson notes "Fleming had had enough of his creation ..." and was apparently ready to retire Bond after Diamonds, when Chandler intervened with his praise of not only Casino Royale but of Live and Let Die (which Fleming had sent over to Chandler upon learning he hadn't yet read it) and thus reinvigorating  Bond for Fleming.

"Chandler's approval seems to have made Fleming quickly decide that the next book, instead of finishing Bond for good, would go to the opposite extreme ... it would have depth and seriousness. Bond would become a 'rounded character' like Chandler's hero Philip Marlowe." (Pearson, pp. 237-238)

One other Fleming presentation to Chandler has come to auction, a copy of Moonraker famously inscribed "To / Field Marsall Chandler / from ? Private / Ian Fleming / 1955" (Neville Collection, Sotheby's New York, 16 November 2004, lot 514, $85,000).  The sentiment therein seems a fitting reminder of the admiration Fleming had for his friend.