Goldfinger.

FLEMING, Ian.

Item Number: 4430

London: Jonathan Cape, 1959.

First edition of the seventh novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Octavo, original black cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the year of publication, “From Ian with love for Jo. May 6, 1959.” The recipient is Josephine Hartford Bryce, husband Ivar Bryce, often cited as one of the primary models for James Bond. Fleming named the character Felix Leiter, Bond’s friend and CIA operative, in part after Ivar Bryce, whose middle name was Felix. The Bryce’s spent their summers at Black Hole Hollow Farm in Vermont, where Fleming was frequently a guest. He spent summers there hiking and plotting his Bond novels. Fleming first conceived the plot for Diamonds are Forever at the farm, and the primary setting of For Your Eyes Only, Echo Park in Vermont, is based on the farm. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Richard Chopping. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A significant association copy.

"In the first two months of 1958, Fleming wrote the first draft of Goldfinger under the working title The Richest Man in the World. This was destined to become a quintessential example of both the novels and the movies" (Biondi, 35). Made into the 1965 film starring Sean Connery as Bond and Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore.