Colonel Sun. A James Bond Adventure.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1968. [Spy thriller] FIRST EDITION, Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's copy, with a printed label loosely inserted. Version with dropped quad mark to copyright page, vertical 'North' pointer (rather than angled) on the cartographic endpapers. Octavo (19 x 14cm), pp.255 [1]. Publisher's black cloth with gilt titles to spine. Maps to endpapers. With the dust-jacket illustrated by Tom Adams priced at 21s. Jacket lightly worn to extremities. Near fine. The first post- Ian Fleming James Bond novel, written under a pseudonym by Kingsley Amis, who had edited Fleming's final 007 story for posthumous publication in 1965. 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. Item #68890
BMC No.1 p.4-13 'James Bond Revivals'. Gilbert, page 612, see also Appendix A, page 634.
Price: £250.00
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