Ian Fleming | Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, 1964-5, first edition, 3 volumes, signed by John Burningham

Ian Fleming

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. London: Jonathan Cape, 1964-5

8vo, 3 volumes, FIRST EDITION, EACH VOLUME SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR JOHN BURNINGHAM, WITH AN ADDITIONAL PENCIL SKETCH OF CHITTY IN FIRST VOLUME also in Burningham's hand, illustrated hardcovers, pictorial dust-jackets, housed in bespoke British racing green quarter morocco clamshell case, plastic wallet containing related ephemera loosely inserted in case (list of ephemera available upon request), boards and inside of dust-jackets lightly spotted, 12mm closed tear to corner of vol.1 dust-jacket, vol.3 dust-jacket slightly browned

A CHARMING FIRST EDITION, published posthumously as three volumes. Fleming originally devised Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang as a bedtime story for his son, Caspar, before writing it up during his recovery from a heart attack. As his typewriter had been taken away from him, Fleming composed the three stories in pencil, making Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang his only published work written by hand. The first volume was published two months after his death, before being adapted into a comic strip, and later made into the 1968 film of the same name. John Burningham (1936-2019) was approached to illustrate Chitty as a result of his picture book debut Borka, which won the 1963 Kate Greenaway Medal. He based the design of Chitty on a sketch by Fleming's motor engineer friend Charles Amherst Villiers.

LITERATURE:

Gilbert A17a; for the story behind Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, see Nicholas Shakespeare, Ian Fleming: The Complete Man (London, 2023), pp. 616-7.