The Spy Who Loved Me
FLEMING, Ian.
The Spy who loved me. London, Jonathan Cape, 1962.
8vo, pp. 221; a fine copy in the original grey-brown boards, dagger stamped to upper cover in silver and blind, spine lettered in silver; in a near-fine first issue jacket designed by Richard Chopping (price ‘15s. net’ not clipped); two small nicks at foot of spine, slightly bumped at head, small crease to upper cover.
First edition, first impression, of the only Bond novel narrated in the first person by the twenty-three-year-old Canadian Vivienne Michel, a lover of Bond’s.
Michel is credited as Fleming’s co-author on the title. ‘This is the story of who I am and how I came through a nightmare of torture ... to a dawn of ecstasy. It’s all true – absolutely. Otherwise Mr Fleming certainly would not have risked his professional reputation in acting as my co-author and persuading his publishers, Jonathan Cape, to publish my story’ (p. 1).
Gilbert A10a (1.1).