Rare Ian Fleming items up for auction this month

Bloomsbury Auctions is known for Modern First Editions and over the last few years has become the place to buy and sell Ian Fleming. The highlight of the Continental and English Literature and Modern First Editions sale at Bloomsbury Auctions on 24th February 2005 is the sale of the second major group of books and letters from Ian Fleming to come onto the market in the last year. The items are from the private collection of his great friend, bookseller and business partner at the Book Collector magazine, Percy Muir.

The cornerstone of the sale (lot 311) is a signed first edition presentation copy of Casino Royale with the unique inscription: ‘To Percy who guided my early steps in literature - but not down those dark corridors! Affectionately Ian.’ Loosely inserted is a colour photograph probably taken at his home in Jamaica of Fleming with Terence James Bond, the ornithologist and author of Birds of the West Indies, whose name Fleming adapted for his iconic British agent, James Bond.



Fleming met Percy Muir the bibliographer and bookseller in the 1930s when he visited his shop and asked him to recommend and send books to him while he was studying at the University of Geneva. Some time later Fleming came to see him and announced that he had made £250 on the stock exchange and wanted to collect books that started something, such as the first book on zip fasteners. Muir persuaded Fleming to widen the scope of his collecting to include books and papers which changed the course of mankind. The collection grew swiftly until it numbered some 2000 pieces some of which he lent to the Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition in 1963. The close friendship between the two men resulted in a varied and steady correspondence spanning many years.



Muir offered his friend a first edition of Casino Royale, to which Fleming replies, ‘naturally I would love to have the Casino Royale - a very fragrant thought of yours. Incidentally I think it is the only Fleming first worth having as I think the first edition was only 3000 copies. With the next book it went up to 10 & nowadays they subscribe 50 before publication & are now around 90 for my last one despite moderate reviews. From little acorns etc!!’ On a more personal note Fleming writes to his friend on 29th June 1964 congratulating him on turning 70 and offering him advice, ‘can’t you find an extra apprentice! Try & avoid donkey work & stick to the ‘coups de genie’. I have invented the ‘Fleming 2 day week which I recommend, & selling 51% of myself was a fine move.’ Fleming died 13 days after he wrote this letter. This long typed letter, photograph and first edition are estimated to fetch £30,000-£40,000.



Another group of letters (lot 312) relates to their shared business activities at The Book Collector magazine (where Fleming was an enthusiastic though intermittent business partner) and his own book collecting interests. In one of these letters he refers to Muir’s invaluable help in building his collection and congratulates him on the appearance of Printing and the Mind of Man, ‘a thousand congratulations on your wonderful catalogue particularly on having elevated our collection to those fantastically proud heights. I truly blush with embarrassed delight and warm with memories of those days when you took me by the hand.’ In a more personal letter to his friend he commiserates on getting older, ‘I hear you have been going through a grisly time below the belt and I send you my warmest sympathy. These are things which I suppose after the age of fifty, we have to bear one by one like everybody does. I have already had sciatica a bit ahead of time and am now waiting for the !
other elderly ailments to catch up with me seriatim.’ This interesting group of business and personal letters is estimated £5,000-£7,000.

Lot 313 consists of two BBC radio transcripts, Ian Fleming, Author and Traveller and the Address given at his Memorial Service (estimated £500-£700). Various friends were interviewed and William Plomer spoke of the parallels between the author and James Bond the character he had created. Ivar Bryce recalled Fleming’s somewhat spartan home in Jamaica. ‘He had built a very, very functional ‘Ian Fleming’ cement house which consisted of one enormous room with no windows because he didn’t like glass. And three little bedrooms in a row with no hot water in the tropics…’ If Noel Coward, a friend and neighbour in Jamaica, was ever asked the way to Fleming’s house, he would say, ‘Well drive along the road, six or seven miles, and the first Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic on the right is ‘Goldeneye’.

Visit the Bloomsbury Auctions website for more information.

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