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50 FLEMING, Ian. Dr No. London: Jonathan Cape, 1958 THE FIRST FLEMING BOOK ADAPTED FOR THE SILVER SCREEN First edition. Dr No is the sixth novel in the James Bond series, and was the first to be turned into a film, starring Sean Connery, in 1962. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in silver, “Honeychile” silhouette on the front cover in brown (second state, no priority of issue). With dust jacket. A beautiful and near-fine copy in the like jacket, unclipped, faint soiling to rear panel and hint of rubbing at extremities. ¶ Gilbert A6a (1.3). £2,750 [154747] 51 FLEMING, Ian. Live and Let Die. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1955 UNIQUE PUBLISHER’S FILE COPY First US edition, publisher’s file or “shooting” copy used for resetting later editions. The second James Bond novel was published in the US nearly a year after the UK first edition and underwent censorship in that country mainly due to the depiction of the novel’s African American villains, but also due to the correction of local details. The most visible change is that chapter five is renamed “Seventh Avenue” for the US edition. The American
censor also heavily edited the dialogue in this chapter, to the extent that a whole passage detailing an argument between a Black American male and his girlfriend is cut, and the dialogue spoken by Felix Leiter is edited. Not all the changes in the text between UK and US editions of Live and Let Die were related to racial depiction within the novel. Some of the changes that were made in the Macmillan edition were also concerned with correcting minute mistakes that Fleming had made which would be noticed by a native population who were more familiar with such details as US railroad routes and American cuisine. This was the earliest book in the series to suffer an actual ban, rather than censorship; publication in May 1954 was refused in the Republic of Ireland. This copy lacks the front free endpaper, half-title and title page, but has an inserted proof title page, with pasteover type and manuscript directions for the printer added in red and blue inks. The contents leaf features handwritten instructions in blue ink, and a similar note to the verso. The second half-title in this copy is reset, with pasteover instruction (“copy to follow”), verso with manuscript note; the remaining sheets are unchanged. Provenance: this and the following Bond items are from the remarkable Ian Fleming collection formed by Martin Schøyen (b. 1940), with his bookplate. Octavo. Original blue boards, spine lettered in yellow, front cover gilt-stamped with “Cock Robin Thriller” device, edges untrimmed. Housed in a custom black quarter morocco folding box. Extremities worn, front joint cracked at foot, label to front cover (“Live & Let Die. Shooting Copy”), publisher’s
instructions to binder written in white crayon to rear cover, gatherings disbound; good condition of this unique material. ¶ Gilbert A2b(1); The Schøyen Collection No. 17. £3,500 [155885] 52 FLEMING, Ian. Moonraker. London: Pan Books Ltd, 1956 Inscribed to the man who hid Goldfinger’s ball First paperback edition, presentation copy to the author’s golfing coach, Alfred Hawkes, who Fleming portrays, minimally disguised, as Bond’s caddie Hawker in the famous golf scene in Goldfinger . Fleming has warmly inscribed the half-title “To Hawkes. Who has got me out of worse jams than this. Ian Fleming”; together with a typed letter signed by Fleming to his coach’s son. Royal St George’s, Kent, where Hawkes coached, was Fleming’s favourite course; indeed, Fleming was playing there on the last day of his life. Fleming describes the course in meticulous detail as the arena for Bond’s epic match with Goldfinger, whose subterfuge is foiled when Hawker, with “his keen sardonic poacher’s face”, hides his ball. In the film it is Bond who does this, lessening the impact of Hawker’s loyalty to Bond in the novel. Fleming again uses the iconic scenery of the Kent coast as a key location in Moonraker , where the white cliffs house Drax’s deadly weapons.
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