CHAPTER

007

You Only Live Twice

 

One of the lingering mysteries surrounding that day in February 1964 when Jim Bond met Ian Fleming at Goldeneye is this: What has become of that celebrated first edition, first printing, of You Only Live Twice that Fleming inscribed and gave to “the real James Bond”?

Fleming wrote this eleventh 007 novel at his Jamaica estate in 1963. Jonathan Cape first published it in Great Britain on March 26, 1964, seven weeks after Bond and Mary dropped in at Goldeneye and received an advance copy of the book. It was the final book in what has become known as the Blofeld Trilogy, named for 007 villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The book, which retailed for sixteen shillings (roughly $19), was the last 007 novel published while Fleming was alive.

Set mostly in Japan, the novel hews fairly closely to the standard 007 formula, with a dash of amnesia thrown in. Besides sex siren Kissy Suzuki and the villainous Blofeld, who is posing as Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, the book features a premature obituary of the fictional James Bond, which made it an interesting choice for Fleming to give to the real James Bond.

The 2008 Financial Times article “Buying Ian Fleming’s Books for Investment” explained that this particular volume was extremely valuable for one simple reason: It’s considered by some to be the ultimate in what’s known in the book-collecting trade as an “association copy”—which in this case meant Fleming’s signature. The article’s author, Simon de Burton, wrote: “An avid book collector himself, Fleming knew the value of his own signature and was selective about handing out inscribed copies, meaning that survivors are particularly sought after, especially if they have associations. Undoubtedly the Holy Grail of such association copies is the first edition of the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice, which Fleming gave to an unexpected visitor who wandered up to his Jamaican island hideaway, Goldeneye, and pronounced himself to be the author of A Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies. His name was Bond—James Bond.”

The dust jacket for the 256-page novel featured a Richard Chopping illustration of a pink chrysanthemum and a Japanese-style toad crushing a dragonfly. The background is a light-tan bamboo. The odd motif didn’t seem to hurt sales. The book had 62,000 preorders and went into a second printing a month after its publication date. The title was derived from Bond’s attempt at a haiku in chapter 11, where he tries to write in the style of seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho.

On the jacket flap, and in gilt lettering on the front of the book, are a series of symbols that supposedly represent the book’s title in Japanese. According to Japanese journalist Hiroki Fukuda, “The Japanese characters read ‘Nido Dake No Seimei.’ It literally means ‘Live Only Twice’ but it doesn’t make sense in Japanese. It is not an appropriate translation of ‘You Only Live Twice’ and moreover, the last character is not correct. ‘You Only Live Twice’ is actually quite hard to translate into Japanese. The Japanese title of the novel and the movie was 007 Wa Nido Shinu, which literally means ‘007 Dies Twice’ in English.”

Jim and Mary Bond, who were married more than thirty-five years, donated their archives to separate institutions. Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department

The book Fleming inscribed to the real James Bond traveled with the Bonds from Jamaica back to their home on Davidson Road in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, and later to their apartment on the top floor of Hill House near the Chestnut Hill commuter train station. According to Robert McCracken Peck of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Mary loved to show the book to guests. After Bond died, Mary and Peck talked many times about whether she would eventually donate it to the academy.

“She said no, no, this really has to do with the Ian Fleming side of his life,” Peck recalls. “I’m going to divide up my papers in two ways. The academy will get all of his scientific papers and the Free Library of Philadelphia will get all the rest.”

That had been Bond’s wish as well. Thus, the inscribed copy of You Only Live Twice, along with several boxes filled with 007 and Bond press clippings, book reviews, and memorabilia, went to the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Rare Book Department but vanished soon after it arrived.

Mary Bond initially donated the inscribed first edition of You Only Live Twice to the Free Library, only to secretly change her mind. Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department

The culprit? Mary herself. According to biographer David Contosta, “Mary had read somewhere that inscribed books like hers could be sold for a tidy sum at auction, so she got it into her head to sell the book even though she did not need the money. I couldn’t convince her otherwise. Mary knew a woman who worked down there at the library. Mary said she just wanted to see the book again, and asked her to bring the book up to her [in Chestnut Hill].”

She never gave it back. According to Caitlin Goodman, curator of the library’s Rare Book Department, instead of returning the book, Mary consigned it to Sotheby’s auction of English Literature and History at Aeolian Hall in London on July 11, 1996.

Lot 283 took up two and a half pages in the catalog and included a promotional card with a photograph of Fleming and Bond taken when they met at Goldeneye in 1964, an enlargement of an original photograph of Bond skinning a European cuckoo in Barbados in 1989, and photocopies of Mary’s book To James Bond with Love.

The book brought 12,500 pounds ($17,092)—considerably more than its pre-auction estimate of 6,000 to 8,000 pounds. The same auction featured a lot of eleven Fleming first editions and fifty-nine first and later editions by or about Fleming and the fictional James Bond. That lot sold for 1,150 pounds—again, much more than the pre-auction estimate of 500 to 700 pounds.

After the Sotheby’s auction, the book disappeared from the public radar until 2008, when it resurfaced as part of Lot 103 at an auction of movie memorabilia. Hollywood Auction 33, held on December 11 at the Profiles in History auction house’s offices in Calabasas Hills, California, featured a dozen other Fleming lots, including signed first editions of From Russia with Love and Casino Royale, plus Roald Dahl’s handwritten 100-page screenplay for the film version of You Only Live Twice.

Other highly publicized items were a flying saucer miniature from Forbidden Planet (Lot 324), featured on the catalog’s cover, and a prop lightsaber that Mark Hamill was said to have used as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (Lot 347).

Lot 103 featured the Fleming book inscribed to James Bond, with the book smartly packaged in a dust jacket in fine condition (it lacked a dust jacket in the previous auction) and a custom half-Morocco clamshell slipcase, plus two items that confirmed the book’s provenance and reinforced its preeminent status as an association copy: Mary Bond’s How 007 Got His Name and a dust jacket from the original 1936 edition of James Bond’s Birds of the West Indies. In fact, the lot took up all of page 36 in the oversized catalog and featured photos of Fleming’s endpaper inscription and the front dust jackets of all three books.

The blurb for Lot 103 touted the book as “the only book ever inscribed for the real-life Bond by Fleming, who died several months after the meeting” and “the ultimate James Bond association! Fleming acknowledges the source of secret agent 007’s name!”

The pre-auction estimate for the lot was $60,000 to $80,000. It sold for $72,000, plus a buyer’s premium that brought the price to $82,600. How much value did that Fleming inscription add to the book? The same first British edition, first printing, from March 1964 was selling for $425 in 2017.

The inscribed copy last surfaced in 2008, when it was put up for sale in Profiles in History’s Hollywood Auction 33. Author’s collection

At that same Hollywood auction in 2008, the signed first edition of From Russia with Love (Lot 95) sold for $32,450 including premium, and the signed first edition of Casino Royale (Lot 94) fetched $20,060 including premium. Four other Ian Fleming–signed first editions, however, failed to meet their opening bids. London rare-book dealer James Pickard, who specializes in Ian Fleming first editions, says that other 007 novels are more valuable—notably the inscribed first editions of Casino Royale. Meanwhile, the Luke Skywalker lightsaber sold for $236,000 including premium, the highest price at the auction.

The first edition of You Only Live Twice that Fleming inscribed to Jim Bond has not surfaced since then. It likely sits in a safe deposit box or a book collector’s dust-free, UV-light-protected bookcase—for his or her eyes only.

Also unaccounted for is Fleming’s copy of the original 1936 first edition of Birds of the West Indies that prompted him to borrow Bond’s name. Perhaps if Fleming had given it more thought, he would have included it in his extensive rare-book collection, which now resides in the University of Indiana’s Lilly Library. It probably contained his personalized bookplate, which features the Fleming crest (a goat), his full name (Ian Lancaster Fleming), and the Fleming motto “Let the deed shaw.”

According to tradition, these were the words that Sir Robert Fleming uttered to Robert Bruce (later King Robert I) after Fleming beheaded Bruce’s chief rival at a church in Dumfries in 1306 and presented the head to Bruce. “Let the deed shaw” means “Let the deed speak for itself” or “Let the deed be manifest.”

The page of the auction catalog featuring the inscribed You Only Live Twice. Author’s collection

Richard Meinertzhagen, shown here in 1915, was a spy, ornithologist, and pathological liar. Public domain