"I LOVE ITS COLOUR, ITS BRILLIANCE, ITS DIVINE HEAVINESS… THE POWER THAT GOLD ALONE GIVES"

FLEMING, Ian. Goldfinger. London: Jonathan Cape, (1959). Octavo, original gilt-stamped black paper boards, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $6800.

First edition of the seventh James Bond thriller, in which Fleming's superspy thwarts Auric Goldfinger's plot to plunder Fort Knox.

"Written when Fleming was on top of his game," Goldfinger "is not only the longest entry in the [Bond] series but also one of the most exuberant, and garnered a certain degree of credibility in literary circles when author Anthony Burgess listed it in his Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939" (Gilbert, 230). Made into the 1965 film starring Sean Connery as Bond and Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore. Cloth in Gilbert's first state, with small indent in the top left section of the skull. Gilbert A7a (1.2). Biondi & Pickard, 45.

Faint spotting to text block edges only, cloth fine; dust jacket with shallow rub to upper corner, a hint of creasing at head of mildly toned spine. A lovely, near-fine copy.