James Bond First Editions

A Servant of Reality.

[Ian Fleming / Bondiana] BOTTOME, Phyllis (1874-1965).

New York: The Century Co., 1919. [Fiction] FIRST U.S. EDITION, SIGNED PRESENTATION COPY. Octavo (19 x 13cm), pp.454; [2], blank. Publisher's tan cloth trimmed in black. Author's inscription to endpaper 'To Albert Elkins - / with the author's compliments / Phyllis Forbes Dennis. Contents and page edges clean, backstrip gently sunned else fine. Phyllis Bottome (1884-1963), novelist and story writer, educator and mentor to Ian Fleming, who attended her private school in school in Kitzbühel, learning French, German and Russian. Her husband Ernan Forbes Dennis, was a retired MI-6 agent. Fleming's adventures in the Austrian Alps are the genesis of James Bond, and it was here that he wrote his first thriller story. This copy is from the comprehensive bibliographical archive assembled by Jon Gilbert, with his pencilled ownership. His encyclopaedic guide to the works of Ian Fleming (2012) won the 16th Breslauer Prize for bibliography. Item #73038

Gilbert, p.635.

Price: £250.00