Ian Fleming | Diamonds are Forever, 1956, first impression, association copy

Ian Fleming

Diamonds Are Forever. London: Jonathan Cape, 1956

8vo, FIRST IMPRESSION, BINDING A, ASSOCIATION COPY, SIGNED BY BRIGADIER FITZROY MACLEAN TO FLYLEAF, publisher's dark grey cloth (Fabroleen), dust-jacket (priced at 12s 6d.), in black half morocco clamshell box

[with:]

Four photographs of Maclean in service (printed later, from Maclean's originals): as British Embassy secretary (Moscow, 1937), with the SAS. in a modified LRDG Chevrolet 1533 truck (North Africa, circa 1942), on horseback (Belgrade, winter 1944), and as a Cameron Highlander, at the wheel of a jeep consulting a map (Belgrade, October 1944).

PROVENANCE:

Sir Fitzroy Maclean (1911-1996): ownership inscription to front free endpaper and business card (as "Secrétaire à l'Ambassade de Sa Majesté Britannique") loosely inserted in prelims. Maclean was a former Etonian diplomat, SAS Commando, adventurer, and travel writer encouraged by Peter Fleming. Maclean liaised with Ian Fleming during the Moscow spy trials in the 1930s, served in Soviet South Asia, the Western Desert Campaign, and at Churchill's personal request, behind enemy lines with Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. Maclean was often labelled a model for James Bond, with 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); sold Lyon and Turnbull, 9 March 2008, lot 117 (part lot).