Description
[James Bond short stories] FIRST EDITION. First Impression, Binding A. Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's copy, with SIGNED notepaper and printed label loosely inserted. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.252. Publisher's black cloth-effect paper over boards, lettered in gilt, pictorial dust-wrapper priced at 15s. No inscriptions, contents clean, jacket with some very light wear and toning. Near fine, in a bespoke leather-spined clamshell box. 'House of Commons' headed paper is in near fine condition (Maclean served as a minister in the War Office around this time). A significant association. Provenance: Sir Fitzroy Maclean (1911-96), former Etonian diplomat, Special Forces 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 with 1st SAS, participating in the raid on Benghazi alongside founder and CO David Stirling, and Capt.Randolph Churchill, and foiling a coup by kidnapping the German Consul in Iraq. At Winston Churchill's personal request, he spearheaded The Maclean Mission (also with Randolph Churchill, and SAS. Major Vivian Street as 2-IC) 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), and like Fleming and Bond, Maclean had a Scottish heritage. Fitzroy Maclean, Peter and Ian Fleming were reunited at literary events, each having been 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, A8a (1.1).
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