From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming, First Edition, First Printing, in Later Dust Jacket, 1957

Fleming, Ian. From Russia, With Love. London: Jonathan Cape, (1957). First edition, first printing. Octavo, in original publisher's black boards, with silver and red embossed motif to the front board, silver and red embossed titles to spine. Presented with a later issue dust jacket. 

Presented is From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming. This is a first edition, first printing, published by Jonathan Cape, in London in 1957. The boards are original, but the book is presented with a later dust jacket. 

This is Ian Fleming's fifth James Bond novel, in which Bond must recover a stolen Soviet encryption device from SMERSH. Fleming considered this in many ways his best work. In 1961, President Kennedy named it among his ten favorite books, "JFK's seal of approval was just the fillip that Viking, Ian's new [American] publishers, needed for his books to take off in the United States" (Lycett, 383). The book was a great commercial success and helped to launch Fleming as a best-selling novelist. The adventure novel ended with Bond seriously wounded and nearly killed by fugu poison from the sex organs of the Japanese globe-fish. Fleming had provided himself with an opportunity to remove his hero and there was tremendous public agitation when 007 was reported dead. 

From Russia, With Love was the first Bond novel to feature Richard Chopping's distinctive artwork: "For 50 guineas, [Fleming] commissioned Richard Chopping, whom he described as 'the only English master' in the art of trompe l'oeil, to paint him a picture of a revolver crossed with a rose for the cover of From Russia, With Love. Over the course of the next decade Chopping… was to become widely known for the meticulous detail of his distinctive Bond novel covers" (Lycett, 300). The famous book was made into a film in 1964 with Sean Connery as Bond and Lotte Lenya as ex-KGB agent Rosa Klebb.

CONDITION:

First edition, first printing book. Octavo. In original publisher's black boards, with silver gun and a silver and red rose embossed front board, silver and red titles embossed to the spine. Boards in fine condition, with only several spots to the lower edge of the back board, and very minimal bumping on the spine. Clean pages inside, no stains or marks. 253 pp.

Presented in a later issue dust jacket, with higher price (18s.net) and different wording to flap. Jacket design by Richard Chopping, price unclipped. Jacket in good + condition, with toning, a small stain to inner front flap, a cut corner on inside flap not affecting price. Very faint stain on back panel. 

Book Dimensions: 7 5/8" H x 5 1/4" W x 1" D.

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.