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First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Hugh, In letters, there's also plenty of room at the bottom! From Ian". The recipient, Hugh Gaitskell, had an intense love affair with Fleming's wife Ann, which lasted for seven years until his death in 1963. The pair first met in April 1956. Gaitskell, who had been elected leader of the Labour Party five months before, was then enjoying a political honeymoon and had caught the attention of the chattering classes. Ann, a vivacious society hostess with an interest in politics, soon invited him and his wife to dinner. They struck up an immediate rapport: Ann wrote fondly of the "jolly dinner", and the two began socializing on a regular basis. "By early July, Gaitskell and Ann had discovered a mutual delight in dancing. A Fred Astaire on his toes, he used to love twirling her around the Café Royal dance floor" (Lycett, p. 295). Gaitskell offered Ann a refuge from her philandering husband, and she introduced him to an aristocratic world of sophistication and frivolity. After a lunch in November, she wrote to Evelyn Waugh that Gaitskell "had never seen cocktails with mint in them or seen a magnum of pink champagne... I lied and told him all the upper classes were beautiful and intelligent and he must not allow his venom to destroy them" (quoted in Brivati, p. 246). Ann was often self-effacing about their relationship in her letters, writing memorably to Lord Beaverbrook, "I suppose I shall have to go dancing next Friday with Hugh Gaitskell to explode his pathetic belief in equality" (quoted in Lycett, p. 295), but their flirtation quickly developed into a romance. Following Gaitskell's unexpected death in 1963, she wrote to Diana Cooper: "I am profoundly unhappy. But thank God he knew I loved him" (quoted in Shakespeare, p. 538). Though their affair sometimes provoked Ian's jealousy - Ann wrote to Waugh that her husband was seeking "revenge" after she took Gaitskell to tea at his golf club in 1959 - the author affected not to take it too seriously. "Ann was much lowered by Hugh's death. I was too. I like all my wife's lovers and, indeed, husbands... He was quite a chap in the eccentric tradition" (quoted in Shakespeare, p. 538). The relationship between the two men was convivial. Gaitskell, a Bond devotee, wrote to Fleming to thank him for his copy of From Russia, With Love. "Thank you very, very much for sending me your latest. As you know, I am a confirmed Fleming fan - or should it be addict? The combination of sex, violence, alcohol and - at intervals - good food and nice clothes is, to one who leads such a circumscribed life as I do, irresistible" (quoted in Pearson, p. 304). Gaitskell was puzzled by Fleming's inscription in the present copy: "The ambiguity of your inscription to me adds, suitably enough, a touch of mystery: will James Bond solve it?" (quoted in Shakespeare, p. 538). Knowing and sardonic, it seems Fleming is referencing John Braine's novel Room at the Top (1957), which features an ambitious, working-class lothario juggling sexual relationships with two middle-class women. READ MORE Octavo. Original black boards, spine lettered in silver, "Honeychile" silhouette to front cover in brown (second state, no priority). With dust jacket. Tiny bumps to corners; a little rubbing to extremities of unclipped jacket, spine slightly toned, else bright: a near-fine copy in near-fine jacket. Gilbert A6a (1.3). Brian Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell: A Biography, 1995; Andrew Lycett, Ian Fleming: The Man Who Created James Bond, 1995; John Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming, 1966; Nicholas Shakespeare, Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, 2023.

Doctor No is the sixth novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, originally published in 1958. It follows the British MI6 agent on a mission to Jamaica where he encounters the eponymous villain, Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to sabotage an American space launch with the help of his criminal organization.