Diamonds Are Forever.

FLEMING, Ian .

Item Number: 123688

London: Jonathan Cape, 1956.

First edition of the fourth novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Octavo, original black cloth. Signed by Henry Blofeld on front free endpaper. Blofeld is the son of Thomas Robert Calthorpe Blofeld (1903-1986) who attended Eton with Fleming and whose name is believed to be the inspiration for the supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. A nice association.

Diamonds are Forever was first published by Jonathan Cape in March 1956, and the first printing quickly sold 12,500 copies. These sales expanded further when Prime Minister Anthony Eden visited Fleming's Jamaican Goldeneye estate (Lindner, 2009). Of course, the sales are owed mostly to the novel's suspenseful plot and themes. The dust cover of the first edition can, in some sense, be seen an allusion to these themes. On Diamonds are Forever, designed by Pat Marriot, we see a tame image of an elegant woman wearing a large diamond. Towards the end of the novel, Fleming writes "Death is forever. But so are diamonds." Diamonds are metaphorical for death, and Bond is death's messenger because he carries the diamonds from London to New York. This is reflective of the immense novelty diamonds had to the British populous at that time (Benson, 1988). The Observer would write, "[Bond is] one of the most cunningly synthesised heroes in crime-fictionMr. Fleming's method is worth noting, and recommending: he does not start indulging in his wilder fantasies until he has laid down a foundation of factual description." It was the basis for the 1971 film bearing the same name directed by Guy Hamilton starring Sean Connery, Jill St. John and Charles Gray.