The James Bond Dossier

London: Jonathan Cape, 1965. [James Bond] FIRST EDITION. Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's copy, with a printed label loosely inserted. Octavo (24 x 16cm), pp.159 [1]. Publisher's hardcover in pictorial dust-wrapper, based on the familiar Chopping 'trompe l'oeil' designs from the Ian Fleming first editions. Contents clean, no inscriptions, some trivial wear to extremities of jacket. A fine copy. Amis' first venture into the world of James Bond. He also wrote the light-hearted 'Book of Bond' in 1965, and the first post-Fleming 007 novel 'Colonel Sun' (1968). Provenance: Sir Fitzroy Maclean (1911-96), former Etonian diplomat, S.A.S. Commando, adventurer and travel writer encouraged by Peter Fleming; liaised with Ian Fleming during the Moscow spy trials in the 1930s, served in Soviet Central Asia, the Western Desert Campaign, and at Churchill's personal request, behind enemy lines with Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. Maclean was often labelled a model for James Bond, with Ian Fleming noting that 007 was "a compound of all the secret agents and commando types that I met during the war" (Bond Bound, p.26). Maclean, Peter and Ian Fleming were reunited at literary events, each being published by Jonathan Cape. Originally sold with all Maclean's copies of the Bond novels [Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 2008], purchased by bibliographer Jon Gilbert for his Fleming Archive, where this copy has remained since. BMC No.1 p.4-13 'Fleming and Bond; Related Titles'. Gilbert, Jon; Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, page 592, see also Appendix A, page 634.