FIRST EDITION FIRST IMPRESSION of Ian Fleming’s debut novel, Casino Royale. Published by Jonathan Cape in 1953. Gilbert A1a (1.1). The first appearance of James Bond in the literary canon.
Bound in the original publisher’s cloth and one of the highly scarce copies which was for public sale originally. The book itself is in near fine condition and entirely internally complete with all called for pages including the two half titles and original blanks. With a fine facsimile dust jacket, lacking the original.
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‘4,760 sets of sheets of the first printing were delivered, but only 4,728 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'.
This book is often considered to be the holy grail of modern book collecting and is especially scarce to find a copy which has never been held institutionally and remains in such excellent condition.
Condition:
Original publisher’s cloth with original endpapers. Spine near fine with an extremely small mark to the ‘N’ in Ian Fleming which is almost imperceptible. Hinges and joints fine. Some very minor scuffs to boards visible under certain lighting conditions, else fine. Pastedowns fine without any bookplates or ownership inscriptions. Very faint erased pencil date to top of first preliminary of 1963, else internally without any writing. Title page fine. Text block near fine with additional details below. No institutional ownership stamps or marks. Complete with two half titles, title page, contents, and pagination collated as complete including blanks. Binding slightly warped but without shelf lean. Very minor marks to page edges. Facsimile dust jacket fine, lacking the original.
Text block begins at pp.9 and continues uninterrupted to pp.218 followed by two blanks as called for. Very small mark to page 100 not affecting text. Crease to leaf 121/122. Very small mark to page 213 slightly affecting one letter of text but without any loss. Else fine and without foxing.
