Octopussy (James Bond short stories)

London: Jonathan Cape, 1966. [Short stories] FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, BINDING A. Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's copy, with his visiting card and printed label loosely inserted. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.95. Publisher's dark grey cloth-effect paper over boards, blocked in silver, patterned grey endpapers, pictorial dust-wrapper illustrated by Richard Chopping. Original price 10s.6d. printed to the front flap. A clean, fine copy in near fine jacket (light wrinkles). Housed in an elegant leather-spined clamshell box. A significant association. 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. Gilbert A14a (1.1).