INSCRIBED FOR PAUL GALLICO
Moonraker
Cape, 1955.
First edition. Original black cloth with silver embossed titles, in striking 'flames' dustwrapper. Author's presentation copy, inscribed to the front endpaper to friend and fellow novelist, Paul Gallico, "P from I." A fine copy in a very good dustwrapper indeed, toned to the spine as usual, with a little wear to the spine ends.
A superb association copy of the third James Bond novel. Gallico, already well established as a novelist and story writer, and Fleming met in the late 1940s when Fleming was seeking someone to write some articles on America in his capacity as foreign manager of Kemsley's Newpapers and the pair immediately formed a close friendship.
"Gallico was the sort of writer Fleming could get on with - genial, amused and ready to enter at once into that 'joking relationship' which Fleming liked to maintain with his close friends" - John Pearson (The Life of Ian Fleming)
Gallico encouraged Fleming into writing, having read the typescript of Casino Royale, replying
"The book is a knock-out... Get out of the office kid and write, because you can."
Gallico also wrote a helpful blurb for the the flap of the first American edition and contributed a long introduction to the Gilt Edged Bonds, the first James Bond omnibus published in 1961.
The succinct inscription is unusual and may be a reference to the use of initials as code-names, such as M and Q-branch, which Fleming used in his depiction of the secret service.
Stock ID: 42200
£45,000.00
