Books

London: Jonathan Cape. 1954. First edition, first printing, first state. First edition, first printing, first state. Original black cloth with bronze titles to the upper board and spine, in dustwrapper. A lovely near fine copy, the binding clean and square, the contents clean and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the near fine lightly rubbed first state dustwrapper which has thin strips of darkening to the flap edges and minor rubbing to the extremities. Not price-clipped (10s 6d net to both the front and rear flap). Housed in a custom made black morocco solander box with titles in gilt to the spine. A very attractive example. The second of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. The first issue dustwrapper omits the credit to the dustwrapper artist Kenneth Lewis. This was noticed roughly two thirds of the way through the print-run and the artist credit overprinted onto the flap for the remainder of the first edition. As such there were no more than 5,300 copies of first…

Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series of stories, and is set in London, the US and Jamaica. It was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1954. In the novel, Bond must defeat a dangerous drug lord with plans to finance Soviet espionage in America. The story was developed during Fleming's second stay in Jamaica, where he had extensive knowledge of the local scenery, wildlife, and underworld.

Identifying a first edition of 'Live and Let Die' by Ian Fleming can include looking for the publisher name 'Jonathan Cape' on the book's dust jacket or spine, no other printings mentioned, and checking the publication date.