Ian Fleming – For Your Eyes Only – First UK Edition 1960 – SIGNED and INSCRIBED to Nancy Cunard
£37,500.00
A first edition, first printing of ‘For Your Eyes Only’ published by Cape in 1960. A near fine book without inscriptions in the near fine (or better) unclipped wrapper which has NONE of the usual fading to the spine. Some rubbing to corners. Signed presentation inscription from the author “To Nancy [Cunard] with one warm kiss from Ian” to front free endpaper below ink inscription in another hand. Original black boards with white eye to upper cover, spine lettered in gilt, slight bumping to spine tips, preserved in custom morocco-backed drop-back box.
Nancy Cunard (1896–1965) was a British writer, publisher, and political activist known for her influential role in modernist culture and anti-racist advocacy. Born into the prominent Cunard shipping family, she rejected aristocratic convention and immersed herself in the artistic circles of London and Paris. In the late 1920s she founded the Hours Press, publishing innovative writers such as Samuel Beckett and Ezra Pound. Her most significant achievement was editing the Negro Anthology (1934), a groundbreaking 900-page collection documenting Black culture, history, and oppression across the diaspora. Cunard was a committed anti-fascist, campaigning actively during the Spanish Civil War and speaking out against racism in Europe and America.
The Flemings were known to have attended parties hosted and including Cunard in the 1950s and 60s. Their mutual friend, William Plomer, who appears among the contributors listed for Cunard’s ‘Negro Anthology’, received a letter (23 July 1960) from Cunard on headed notepaper from Holloway Sanitorium, following her being committed there in 1960. The letter (in the Durham University archive) thanks Plomer for sending his ‘Collected Poems’ and commenting on the poems. We can assume therefore, that hearing the news of Cunard being committed to Holloway, Fleming followed suit, inscribing this book published that year.
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- Description
Description
A first edition, first printing of ‘For Your Eyes Only’ published by Cape in 1960. A near fine book without inscriptions in the near fine (or better) unclipped wrapper which has NONE of the usual fading to the spine. Some rubbing to corners. Signed presentation inscription from the author “To Nancy [Cunard] with one warm kiss from Ian” to front free endpaper below ink inscription in another hand. Original black boards with white eye to upper cover, spine lettered in gilt, slight bumping to spine tips, preserved in custom morocco-backed drop-back box.
Nancy Cunard (1896–1965) was a British writer, publisher, and political activist known for her influential role in modernist culture and anti-racist advocacy. Born into the prominent Cunard shipping family, she rejected aristocratic convention and immersed herself in the artistic circles of London and Paris. In the late 1920s she founded the Hours Press, publishing innovative writers such as Samuel Beckett and Ezra Pound. Her most significant achievement was editing the Negro Anthology (1934), a groundbreaking 900-page collection documenting Black culture, history, and oppression across the diaspora. Cunard was a committed anti-fascist, campaigning actively during the Spanish Civil War and speaking out against racism in Europe and America.
The Flemings were known to have attended parties hosted and including Cunard in the 1950s and 60s. Their mutual friend, William Plomer, who appears among the contributors listed for Cunard’s ‘Negro Anthology’, received a letter (23 July 1960) from Cunard on headed notepaper from Holloway Sanitorium, following her being committed there in 1960. The letter (in the Durham University archive) thanks Plomer for sending his ‘Collected Poems’ and commenting on the poems. We can assume therefore, that hearing the news of Cunard being committed to Holloway, Fleming followed suit, inscribing this book published that year.
