Ian Fleming

A first United Kingdom edition, first printing of the James Bond novel Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming.

• Ian Fleming (English).
• London: Jonathan Cape, 1954.
• Raymond Chandler’s ownership stamp to flyleaf (dated May 24 1954).
• Bound in the original black cloth, lettered in gilt, design to upper board in gilt, in the dust wrapper with Kenneth Lewis’ acknowledgement to the front flap.

A superb association copy between the two masters of their genres. Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler began a friendship in 1955, during a dinner at Stephen Spender’s, and it lasted the remaining four years of Chandler’s life. He inscribed a copy of his final novel, Playback for Fleming and received a warmly inscribed copies of Moonraker and Goldfinger from the Bond creator. Their relationship had perhaps the most profound effect on Fleming and his literary career. By the time the two men meet, Fleming was finished with Bond, having “convinced himself that he had gone as far as with writing about James Bond as he ever would or could” (Pearson, pages 232-233). It was in large part thanks to Chandler’s encouragement that Fleming was persuaded not to abandon Bond after the first two literary instalments, but rather to give him greater depth.

Listed in Gilbert (2012) p.63, under ‘notable association copies.’