James Bond First Editions

A Person From England. and other travellers to Turkestan.

MACLEAN, Fitzroy (1911-1996).

London: Jonathan Cape, 1958. [Travel] FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY. Octavo (21 x 15cm), pp.384. Publisher's blue cloth, gilt titles to spine, photographic dust-jacket and matching endpapers, top edge tinted blue. Illustrated with a map and eight double sided two tone photographic plates. With signed inscription to half title: "Momo / with / much love / from Fitzroy / 1958". Contents clean, name erased from half-title, jacket with a few snags and tears, toned to spine. Very good. Following his celebrated first book 'Eastern Approaches' this is Brigadier Maclean's further accounts of daring exploratory forays into the east. Here he narrates the story of The Great Game - the fight for supremacy between the Russians and the British Empire along the Himalayas. Maclean attended Eton at the same time as Ian and Peter Fleming, and first worked with Ian Fleming in Moscow, 1939. He had an Anglo-Scottish background (like Fleming and Bond), and was at various times a diplomat, traveller, clan chieftain and outstanding public servant. His is best remembered as a war hero; a man of action who carried out covert operations behind the lines in North Africa as part of the newly formed SAS, and later played a pivotal role liaising with Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. Given his career and background, [Sir] Fitzroy Maclean is often put forward (along with a few other creditable candidates), as the real-life model for James Bond. Item #65886

Gilbert, p.647.

Price: £250.00