FLEMING, Ian. Octopussy and The Living Daylights.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1966.
First edition, first impression, in the first issue dust jacket, from the personal library of Air Chief Marshal Lord Portal.
Octavo. Publisher’s dark brown/black cloth boards, lettered in silver to the upper board and spine, grey marbled endpapers, original Richard Chopping dust jacket, correctly priced 10s. 6d. net to the front flap. 95 pp.
A particularly attractive first edition of Fleming’s final James Bond book, published posthumously by Jonathan Cape in 1966 and collecting the two title stories only: Octopussy and The Living Daylights. Later editions would absorb further Bond stories, but the true first presents Fleming’s last Bond material in its original, spare Cape form. The jacket is one of Richard Chopping’s most memorable late designs for the series, with the shell, fish and flies set against a pale wood-grain background, a macabre and faintly tropical visual conclusion to the Bond sequence.
This copy has excellent provenance, coming from the personal library of Air Chief Marshal Lord Portal, one of the most important British air commanders of the Second World War. A direct personal association between Fleming and Portal is not claimed here, but the wartime context is highly appropriate: Fleming served in Naval Intelligence, while Portal stood at the summit of British air strategy, and surviving records show their worlds could overlap in matters of intelligence and weapons policy during the war.
Condition: a very good to near fine copy. The binding is clean and bright, with the silver lettering still fresh. Contents clean, with light natural toning and a few small spots visible to the text block and occasional leaves. The unclipped first issue jacket presents very well indeed, with strong colour, only light toning to the pale panels, minor rubbing and small nicks to extremities, and slight wear at spine tips and corners.
