FLEMING, Ian (1908-64). From Russia, With Love, London, 1957, 8vo, original black cloth, dust-jacket (some fraying with loss of letters at head of backstrip). FIRST EDITION.

FLEMING, Ian (1908-64).  From Russia, With Love. London: Jonathan Cape, 1957. 8vo (188 x125mm). Half title (a few spots to page edges). Original black cloth with gun and rose motif stamped in red and silver on the upper cover, the spine lettered in red and silver, the dust-jacket designed by Richard Chopping depicting a handgun and a rose, the lower wrapper with reviews of 'Diamonds are Forever' (dust-jacket price-clipped and with a section torn away from head of backstrip with loss of "Ian" and part of "Fle ..." in the author's name, some fraying with minor loss to corners, lower wrapper a little browned). Provenance: label inconspicuously removed from front free endpaper with very slight abrasion. FIRST EDITION of the author's fifth novel to feature James Bond and the first of Chopping's trompe-l'oeuil jacket designs. Connolly Modern First Editions (1987) p.119: "Gun and rose motif on boards, repeated on the superb Chopping d/w, depicting a sawn-off Smith and Wesson and a red rose against a pale wood background. The famous stencil lettering appears to be inked onto the wood, but beneath the rose stem. This is the first of Richard Chopping's trompe l'oeuil [sic] d/ws, which continued, with the exception of [Dr No], to the end of the Bond saga"; Gilbert A5a.