What book was published in 1953, quickly setting a new genre in fiction, and leading to strong competition among book collectors for the author’s first editions?

The answer, of course, is Ian Fleming’s first James Bond story, Casino Royale. The book was then priced, in 1953, at about ¢50 but if you want to buy a first edition today (signed by the author, for instance), then you’ll need to pay in the region of $75,000 (just call the Manhattan Rare Book Company in New York).

By comparison, you could buy a complete collection of the fourteen novels from Adrian Harrington Rare Books, London, for a mere $61,384.15. But for many collectors this would take away the fun and fanaticism involved in tracking down each volume one by one, assessing its condition, provenance, even its booky smell.

Then, as soon as a first edition runs to a ‘second impression’, prices tumble and you’ll even find one on eBay for $800-1,000. Other horrors that dramatically affect value are ‘Library stamp present’, or ‘Lacks dust wrapper’, as may be noted in a book dealer’s catalogue. There are many keen collectors of early editions of Fleming’s Bond novels (and many other modern first editions, too) and they all know that it is the presence of a pristine ‘dust wrapper’ (to use the dealers’ parlance) that puts a first edition in this condition on the top of the pile when it comes to value.

Many of the writer’s own experiences were to reappear in the life and adventures of James Bond, giving those early 1950s readers a thrilling mix of espionage, suave sophistication, sex and mystery, quite unique at the time and still appealing to us today. No surprise, then, that the novels of Ian Fleming were immediately recognized as classic thrillers by his contemporaries Kingsley Amis, Raymond Chandler, Paul Gallico, and John Betjeman. With a deft touch, James Bond was invented, and Ian Fleming had created the greatest British fictional icon of the late twentieth century.