became best known for producing the 1950s NBC television police drama and feature film Dragnet (also known as “Badge 714”). Casino Royale , the first of the Bond novels, was first published in the UK the preceding year. From the Ian Fleming collection of Martin Schøyen (b. 1940), with his bookplate. Octavo. Original green cloth, red diamonds and lettering on spine and front cover. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom blue quarter morocco solander box. Rubbing at spine ends and corners, faint abrasion to front free endpaper from label, sometime removed, contents fresh. A near-fine copy in very good dust jacket indeed, light rubbing, a few nicks at extremities, remains bright and clean. ¶ Gilbert A1b(1.2); The Schøyen Collection No. 9. Andrew Lycett, Ian Fleming: The Man Who Created James Bond , 2012. £37,500 [155878] 51 FLEMING, Ian. Moonraker. London: Jonathan Cape, 1955 presented to his employer and close friend First edition, second state, presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication, “To Gomer To take his mind off the Strike! Ian 1955”. This is a wonderful association: James Gomer Berry, 1st Viscount Kemsley, was a significant figure in Fleming’s life. Lord Kemsley, owner of the Sunday Times , offered Fleming a job as foreign news manager of Kemsley Newspapers after the war, and enabled him to write the Bond novels by allowing an unusual clause in Fleming’s contract: Fleming would take January and February as his annual paid leave, during which time he worked on his novels at Goldeneye, on Jamaica’s north shore. The strike Fleming refers to in his inscription was a printer’s dispute that kept the Sunday Times and the other Fleet Street-based newspapers off the presses for 26 days in March–April 1955, at an estimated cost to the industry of £3,000,000. Throughout their working relationship, Kemsley regarded Fleming as a favoured son. Although by no means a senior figure in the Kemsley organization, Fleming was the only person in the building who would call Kemsley by his first names – as seen in the inscription here – and Fleming frequently entertained Lord and Lady Kemsley with social visits. It was a mutually beneficial relationship: Fleming brought the ailing Sunday Times glamour, social cachet, and credibility, and in return was
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50 FLEMING, Ian. Casino Royale. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954 scarce inscribed us edition First US edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “Stan. ‘Read & Burn’ I. from Ian. 1954”. A very small number of US hardbacks inscribed by Fleming have been recorded. The jacket is the second
issue, with the corners of the front flap clipped and with the price of $2.75 printed longitudinally. The recipient was Stanley D. Meyer (1913–1999), an executive producer who negotiated with Fleming and his agent Swanson regarding the filming rights to Live and Let Die and Moonraker . Following the success of CBS’s production of Casino Royale , released on 21 October 1954, Meyer offered Fleming $5,000 per subsequent Bond film produced; this was significantly below Fleming’s asking price of $25,000, and an agreement was never reached (Lycett). Meyer
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