“WHOM HAVE YOU BEEN SENT OVER TO KILL HERE, MR. BOND?”: FIRST EDITION OF IAN FLEMING’S LIVE AND LET DIE, A WONDERFUL COPY IN RARE FIRST-ISSUE DUST JACKET

FLEMING, Ian. Live and Let Die. London: Jonathan Cape, (1954). Octavo, original gilt-stamped black paper boards, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $35,000.

Scarce first edition of Fleming’s second James Bond novel, “full of pace, incident and color” (Lycett, 238)—in which 007 investigates an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America—in the rare first-issue dust jacket.

"Before Casino Royale was published [in 1953], Fleming had already researched and written what was originally to be called The Undertaker's Wind. Far from repeating the formula of his first success, this [book] was a world away from the sinister style of a luxurious European gambling resort" (Black, 10-11). "Fleming accomplished an extraordinary amount in the history of the thriller. Almost single-handedly, he revived popular interest in the spy novel, spawning legions of imitations, parodies, and critical and fictional reactions. Through the immense success of the filmed versions of his books, his character James Bond became the best known fictional personality of his time and Fleming the most famous writer of thrillers since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" (Reilly, 571). First-issue dust jacket, without credit for jacket design and art. With all textual points called for in Gilbert A2a(1.). Biondi & Pickard, 41.

Book with faint foxing to endpapers and textblock edges only; price-clipped dust jacket bright and beautiful. A wonderful copy.