Estimate: | £300 - £500 |
Hammer price: | £300 |
FLEMING, Ian (1908-64). The Spy Who Loved Me. London: Jonathan Cape, 1962. 8vo (188 x 125mm). Half title, double-page illustration of "Dreamy Pines Motor Court", chapter numbers within decorative typographical borders, initials. Original dark brown cloth with a dagger stamped in blind with a silver blade on the upper cover, the spine lettered in silver with the publisher's device at the foot, dust-jacket designed by Richard Chopping with the price clipped, red endpapers (the boards with some very faint rubbing and staining, the jacket with a few closed short tears, the lower wrapper lightly stained). Please note that the dust-jacket has been photographed in its protective acetate wrapper which we have not removed to avoid damaging it. Provenance: Kate Mulroney (signature on front free endpaper). FIRST EDITION, THE RARE FIRST IMPRESSION with the "quad mark" between the "e" and "m" of Fleming on the title page. In the age of printing with movable type, the metal spacers between letters were called "quads". If, during the printing process, one of these dropped down and left an impression on the paper it was known as a "quad mark". Alone among the Bond books, The Spy Who Loved Me is unusual in that it is written in the first person by the fictional character Vivienne Michel, whose name shares Fleming's on the title page. Biondi & Pickard p.47; Gilbert 10.