FLEMING, Ian. The Man With The Golden Gun. London: Jonathan Cape.1965.
8vo. Original publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering, without the gilt gun to the upper board, and patterned green and white endpapers; pictorial dustjacket with wraparound illustration by Richard Chopping; pp. [viii], 221, [3]; slight bumping to head and tail of spine; scuffing to head and tail of dustjacket spine and corners with small closed tear to head; otherwise very good.
First edition, inscribed "To Gus/From Ian Fleming" on half title but not in Fleming's hand This is the first impression, first issue, second state, binding A as described in Gilbert, which was issued in a run of 23,203 copies.
The Man with the Golden Gun was written at Goldeneye, Fleming's private estate in Jamaica, in early 1964. The plot features Scaramanga, arms deals, narcotics, smuggling, and the Jamaican sugar industry, among other dastardly deeds. Fleming was accustomed to the sugar business, with friends in the trade, and his Jamaican estate was close to the Drax Hall sugar estate, originally belonging to the 18th century gothic novelist William Beckford~b~.
Gilbert, p.412.~i~
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