Ian Fleming | Casino Royale, 1953, first edition, first impression, first issue, inscribed by Kenneth Lewis, with signed limited edition watercolour

Ian Fleming

Casino Royale. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953

8vo, FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, FIRST ISSUE, INSCRIBED BY THE DUST-JACKET ARTIST ("Kenneth Lewis | who executed the dust | jacket based upon a | design provided by | Ian Fleming") on front free endpaper, original black cloth, lettered in red, design to upper cover in red, original dust-jacket by Kenneth Lewis, housed in bespoke black cloth clamshell case with dust-jacket design embossed, light spotting to front free endpaper, inside of dust-jacket slightly browned, some neat restoration to dust-jacket

[with:]

(i) LIMITED EDITION WATERCOLOUR SIGNED BY LEWIS (NO. 004 OF 009 PRODUCED) REFLECTING THE ARTWORK OF THE DUST-JACKET. For other limited edition watercolours signed by Lewis, see lots 108 and 110.

(ii) 10 SHILLING BANKNOTE SIGNED BY FLEMING loosely inserted in volume

(iii) Plastic wallet of related ephemera loosely inserted in case (list of ephemera available upon request)

FLEMING'S FIRST NOVEL, AND THE DEBUT JAMES BOND TITLE, INSCRIBED BY THE LEGENDARY DUST-JACKET ARTIST KEN LEWIS. The inscription in this copy attests to the high degree of personal responsibility that Fleming took with regard to the visual appearance of the Bond novels. As he remarked to Cape in the run-up to the publication of Casino Royale: "I have designed a jacket of exquisite symmetry and absolute chastity... I bet your other authors don't work as hard for you as I do" (quoted in Shakespeare, p. 488). Kenneth Lewis (1926-2013) produced the dust-jacket designs for the first three Bond novels. He and Fleming were colleagues at Kemsley Newspapers in the early 1950s.

Casino Royale was written in early 1952 at Goldeneye, Fleming's tropical hideaway on Jamaica's north shore. "Of the conception of this most famous of debuts Fleming repeatedly said that it was written to take his mind off his forthcoming marriage yet as early as the end of the war, following his decommission from a successful career in Naval Intelligence, Fleming had told Ivar Bryce that he would settle down to write 'the spy novel to end all spy novels'..." (Gilbert, Fleming: The Bibliography, p. 16)

LITERATURE:

Gilbert A1a (1.1); for Fleming's role in the design of the dust-jacket for Casino Royale, see Nicholas Shakespeare, Ian Fleming: The Complete Man (London, 2023), pp. 487-8.