The 13th April 2023 marks the 70th anniversary of the first 007 novel. Casino Royale started it all when it was published on this day in 1953. It was the daddy of them all, Ian Fleming wrote another eleven novels and two short story collections with James Bond as its hero who gained new heights of stardom when the first movie hit the cinemas in 1962. Ian Fleming publications will be celebrating this important anniversary with the launch of new editions of the Bond paperbacks.
What is far more important to us though is the fact that the first issue of The Book Collector appeared as Ian typed the final sentences of Casino Royale at Goldeneye in Jamaica, clearly getting over the line first. It was on the 12th May 1952 that he mentioned his novel to his friend William Plomer, reader at Jonathan Cape, over lunch…and the rest is as they say history. The Book Collector may not have sold as many copies as the Bond novels, nor are we making record prices in the auction rooms for a first issue, but just like Bond we are still very much part of Ian's legacy.
We have reported over the years how the prices for Fleming's books have changed over the years and we expect them to continue to surprise us. The first copy of Casino Royale to sell at auction was inscribed to John Hayward, the editor of The Book Collector at the time, and made £60 in 1966. The next one fetched £420 at an auction in 1979 and at the time that result was described as 'staggering'. By 1983 we reported that a presentation copy sold for £2,700, while a copy inscribed 'To M' - assumed to be a joke to please Maud Russell - sold for £5,500 at Sotheby's in 1989. Christie's New York sold the Robert Rechler collection of modern masterpieces in October 2002 and it included the Hayward presentation copy again, making $47,800 this time. In 2011 Sotheby's sold one signed to Leonard Russell, who had persuaded the boss of paperback giant Pan to buy the first Bond novel - this copy made £55,000. In Spring 2017 we reported how one of the most important presentation copies, from Ian to Robert Harling, sold at Christie's for £15,000 in 2009 and resurfaced in Lucius Books' catalogue for £80,000.
You can find out more about how the prices changed over the years in our archive, if you are a subscriber, but if you are not, you can still buy our special Ian Fleming issue via our bookstore >