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Protected: Collection

FLEMING, Ian. Casino Royale

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AN EXTRAORDINARY PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF FLEMING’S FIRST AND RAREST BOND, CASINO ROYALE“TO MJW, WHO REALLY SHOULDN’T READ THIS SORT OF THING”: WARMLY INSCRIBED TO MURIEL WILLIAMS, HIS PRIVATE SECRETARY AND PROOFREADER THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE COPY

FLEMING, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition in first issue dust jacket of Fleming’s first book, a rare presentation copy inscribed to his private secretary Muriel Williams: “To MJW, who really shouldn’t read this sort of thing, from the author.” An exceptionally fine copy with a most important association.

Muriel Williams was Fleming’s in-house private secretary and proofreader throughout his career as a novelist. Along with John Hayward and William Plomer, she read each Bond novel in manuscript, making corrections and suggestions before publication. “On publication of Casino Royale it was apparent that a remarkable new writer had arrived on the scene? Bond, at any rate on the surface, was a carefully constructed amalgam of what many men would like to be—and of what perhaps rather fewer women would not like to meet: handsome, elegant, brave, tough, at ease in expensive surroundings, predatory and yet chivalrous in sexual dealings, with a touch of Byronic melancholy and remoteness thrown in” (Kingsley Amis). “According to the Cape archives, 4760 sets of sheets of the first printing were delivered, but only 4728 copies were bound up. Many of these went to public libraries and we believe that less than half of the first printing was sold to the public. The jacket is genuinely rare in fresh condition” (Biondi and Pickard, 40). Inscribed copies are extremely rare and desirable and this is an exceptionally important association. An absolutely fine copy, most desirable inscribed and with a great association.