You Only Live Twice - Author s Presentation Copy -
Ian Lancaster Fleming
1964 - Jonathan Cape, London - First Edition, First Impression, First State
Inscribed by Ian Fleming to Amherst Villiers; 'read it, damn you!'.
A superb association; legendary engineer Charles Amherst Villiers (1900-1991) designed a supercharger for the 4½ litre 'Blower' Bentley; Fleming chose the 'blower' as James Bond's own vehicle, which appears in the first three novels. Villiers worked on jet engines, rocket propulsion, world-speed records and was also an accomplished portrait artist. So engaged with these interests, Villiers had little time to read, and this was reflected in the author's succinct inscription. Additionally signed in pencil by Janie Villers, who cooked sausages for Fleming to eat while sitting for the portrait of him painted by her father, together with a signed letter of provenance from Fleming bibliographer Jon Gilbert.
A fine first edition, in fine dust jacket, elegantly housed in a bespoke leather clamshell case, black morocco spine with gilt lettering and felt lining. ***
An extract from ‘Amherst Villiers – The Man Who Supercharged Bond by Paul Kenny’ [The Literary James Bond Magazine - Interview with Paul Kenney, June 21,2020]
What was Villiers’ relationship with Fleming like?
They met at an Oxford ball, around 1927. Fleming was not yet 20 and still finding his way in life. Amherst was seven years older and his cars had been at the forefront of British motorsport for several years, yet they revelled in each other’s company and often met up if they were both in London.
Fleming told Playboy magazine that he gave Bond a Blower Bentley to drive because ‘Amherst Villers was and is a great friend of mine and I knew something about it from my friendship with him.’ It was a regular joke between the pair that Amherst only read books on engineering and art, never fiction. Fleming dedicated a copy of You Only Live Twice to him with the words, ‘To Amherst. Read it, damn you!’
They saw plenty of each other during the spring of 1962 when Fleming visited Amherst’s Kensington home regularly to sit for the portrait. Each session began with his favourite lunch of scrambled eggs and sausages, washed down with red wine, and then work began. There was plenty of conversation during the sittings, and Amherst sometimes had to banish his wife Nita from the studio when she made Fleming laugh. Fleming liked the portrait so much that it became the frontispiece to a limited edition of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Amherst and Nita were living in California when they learned Fleming had died. Nita told a researcher who worked on John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming, ‘We both loved him and the world will always be less for us without him.’
***
In You Only Live Twice a wasted Bond is given a ‘mission impossible’ to the exotic orient, which in turn leads him to the maniacal westerner Dr. Shatterhand; a ‘collector of death’. ‘Shatterhand’ is the working title for the 25th James Bond film, currently in production.
Fabulously Fleming characters include Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Tiger Tanaka the head of the Japanese Secret Service, Kissy Suzuki, pearl diver and ex-movie star, and not to forget Irma Bunt, Stavro's henchwoman responsible for the death of Bond's wife Tracy Di Vicenzo.
First edition of the last title in what has become known as the ‘Blofeld’ trilogy and Fleming's last published novel before his death.
Reference: Gilbert, Ian Fleming - The Bibliography, A12a (1.1):- Book - First Impression, First State, Binding A - With first impression errors including ‘Cambridge’ for ‘Oxford’ (page 80 line 17); ‘Topoyet’ for ‘Toyopet’ (page107 line 1); First State with ‘First published 1964’ present to copyright page. Type C cloth in black, the front cover gilt stamped with seven Japanese characters, aligned left and running vertically down the board, back strip lettered in silver, bamboo patterned endpapers (these were available in three different shades, no priority). Dust Jacket - First edition, priced ‘16s. net’ to lower corner of front flap (re-priced at ‘18s’ from half way through third impression).
Other References: Penzler, Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Biondi/Pickard, Firsts Vol 8 No4 (1998). Campbell, Ian Fleming- A Catalogue of a Collection. Steinbrunner & Penzler, Encyclopaedia of Mystery & Detection. Eric Quayle, Detective Fiction.
Octavo (book size 19.5x12.8cm), pp. 256. Dust jacket designed by Richard Chopping, all corners with Jonathan Cape’s decorative clip. Condition: Fine in fine dust jacket Ref: 112089 Price: HK$ 220,000
A superb association; legendary engineer Charles Amherst Villiers (1900-1991) designed a supercharger for the 4½ litre 'Blower' Bentley; Fleming chose the 'blower' as James Bond's own vehicle, which appears in the first three novels. Villiers worked on jet engines, rocket propulsion, world-speed records and was also an accomplished portrait artist. So engaged with these interests, Villiers had little time to read, and this was reflected in the author's succinct inscription. Additionally signed in pencil by Janie Villers, who cooked sausages for Fleming to eat while sitting for the portrait of him painted by her father, together with a signed letter of provenance from Fleming bibliographer Jon Gilbert.
A fine first edition, in fine dust jacket, elegantly housed in a bespoke leather clamshell case, black morocco spine with gilt lettering and felt lining. ***
An extract from ‘Amherst Villiers – The Man Who Supercharged Bond by Paul Kenny’ [The Literary James Bond Magazine - Interview with Paul Kenney, June 21,2020]
What was Villiers’ relationship with Fleming like?
They met at an Oxford ball, around 1927. Fleming was not yet 20 and still finding his way in life. Amherst was seven years older and his cars had been at the forefront of British motorsport for several years, yet they revelled in each other’s company and often met up if they were both in London.
Fleming told Playboy magazine that he gave Bond a Blower Bentley to drive because ‘Amherst Villers was and is a great friend of mine and I knew something about it from my friendship with him.’ It was a regular joke between the pair that Amherst only read books on engineering and art, never fiction. Fleming dedicated a copy of You Only Live Twice to him with the words, ‘To Amherst. Read it, damn you!’
They saw plenty of each other during the spring of 1962 when Fleming visited Amherst’s Kensington home regularly to sit for the portrait. Each session began with his favourite lunch of scrambled eggs and sausages, washed down with red wine, and then work began. There was plenty of conversation during the sittings, and Amherst sometimes had to banish his wife Nita from the studio when she made Fleming laugh. Fleming liked the portrait so much that it became the frontispiece to a limited edition of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Amherst and Nita were living in California when they learned Fleming had died. Nita told a researcher who worked on John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming, ‘We both loved him and the world will always be less for us without him.’
***
In You Only Live Twice a wasted Bond is given a ‘mission impossible’ to the exotic orient, which in turn leads him to the maniacal westerner Dr. Shatterhand; a ‘collector of death’. ‘Shatterhand’ is the working title for the 25th James Bond film, currently in production.
Fabulously Fleming characters include Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Tiger Tanaka the head of the Japanese Secret Service, Kissy Suzuki, pearl diver and ex-movie star, and not to forget Irma Bunt, Stavro's henchwoman responsible for the death of Bond's wife Tracy Di Vicenzo.
First edition of the last title in what has become known as the ‘Blofeld’ trilogy and Fleming's last published novel before his death.
Reference: Gilbert, Ian Fleming - The Bibliography, A12a (1.1):- Book - First Impression, First State, Binding A - With first impression errors including ‘Cambridge’ for ‘Oxford’ (page 80 line 17); ‘Topoyet’ for ‘Toyopet’ (page107 line 1); First State with ‘First published 1964’ present to copyright page. Type C cloth in black, the front cover gilt stamped with seven Japanese characters, aligned left and running vertically down the board, back strip lettered in silver, bamboo patterned endpapers (these were available in three different shades, no priority). Dust Jacket - First edition, priced ‘16s. net’ to lower corner of front flap (re-priced at ‘18s’ from half way through third impression).
Other References: Penzler, Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Biondi/Pickard, Firsts Vol 8 No4 (1998). Campbell, Ian Fleming- A Catalogue of a Collection. Steinbrunner & Penzler, Encyclopaedia of Mystery & Detection. Eric Quayle, Detective Fiction.
Octavo (book size 19.5x12.8cm), pp. 256. Dust jacket designed by Richard Chopping, all corners with Jonathan Cape’s decorative clip. Condition: Fine in fine dust jacket Ref: 112089 Price: HK$ 220,000