10 replies to this topic

[Blofeld's Cat]

Does anyone own the 1967 Pan paperback (330 02082 X)?

I bought it in "preloved codition" and read it ages ago, but I was browsing through it the other day and was reminded that page 45-6 is actually located between the title page and the Contents page! In the body of the book the pages go from 44 to 47, so the 45-6 leaf (is that the correct term?) has been misplaced in the book during the print run.

I was just wondering if the glitch is in every copy of this particular reprint?

If not, it may be in just a few, and I guess this particular copy may be worth more than the correct copy. Perhaps?

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[Hitch]

I have the book - an early and unexpected Xmas present. It's a tremendous read and I recommend it to anyone who has read all the Bond novels and needs a taste of Fleming.

My edition is in order. Pages 44-47 are where they should be so I think you have a rare misprint. Or do I have an uncommon correct edition?

[Blofeld's Cat]

My edition is in order. Pages 44-47 are where they should be so I think you have a rare misprint.  Or do I have an uncommon correct edition? 

Both, I'd say.

Thanks, Hitch.

[chrisno1]

My copy has the correct page order also.
I recently read this having obtained a second hand copy. I was never aware of it before (which is odd given how interested I am in Fleming and Bond) it doesn't seem to get much press.
I enjoyed it, but Pearson loses interest towards the end of the biography. He's very good on the early years and the war stuff. He has some good quotes and his research seems good, but the stuff from about 1956 onwards gets more and more sketchy. The last four years are almost inconsequential, yet (as Pearosn states himself) this was when Bond made Fleming into the success he so craved and when his creation wore him out: it is possibly the most interesting period of Fleming's writing career. I liked Pearson's critique on CR and the process Fleming adopted to create it, indeed all his research in this area was excellent. I was also pleased to read that many contemporaries were most excited by LALD - a novel I consider one of his most accessible, but which is not rated very highly these days.
It also has a good turn of Fleming-esque phrase and I can see why Glidrose considered him for writing the "Authorised Biography of James Bond". However that novel suffers the same fault as this book and tails off badly. Never mind. All in all this was a worth while read.

Edited by chrisno1, 06 May 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[AMC Hornet]

I don't have the paperback, just a first edition hardcover - one of the jewels of my collection, and the only one I've ever come across.

I know this doesn't contribute to the discussion - I'm just boasting.

[chrisno1]

I don't have the paperback, just a first edition hardcover - one of the jewels of my collection, and the only one I've ever come across.

I know this doesn't contribute to the discussion - I'm just boasting.

Nothing wrong with that - congratulations I'd say!
What's the cover look like, out of interest?

[AMC Hornet]

Black, with a gold-tinted double-exposure portrait of Fleming - full-face and profile, overlaid. (McGraw Hill)

The corners and edges of the dust cover are a bit frayed, but I treasure it anyway.

BTW I also have a first-edition Putnam HC of Colonel Sun (the one with the Daliesque landscape). Again, the only one I've ever seen.

Edited by AMC Hornet, 06 May 2012 - 04:56 PM.

[glidrose]

BTW I also have a first-edition Putnam HC of Colonel Sun (the one with the Daliesque landscape). Again, the only one I've ever seen.

You mean Harper & Row? Putnam didn't publish the book. BTW, the cover art was on the Jonathan Cape UK edition.

I enjoyed it, but Pearson loses interest towards the end of the biography. He's very good on the early years and the war stuff. He has some good quotes and his research seems good, but the stuff from about 1956 onwards gets more and more sketchy. The last four years are almost inconsequential

Agreed. But as we know from Lycett's bio, there wasn't much he could write about without stepping on toes.

I was also pleased to read that many contemporaries were most excited by LALD - a novel I consider one of his most accessible, but which is not rated very highly these days.

That was Fleming's best-selling novel in the 50's. The Jonathan Cape edition went through the greatest number of reprints.

It also has a good turn of Fleming-esque phrase and I can see why Glidrose considered him for writing the "Authorised Biography of James Bond".

Glidrose didn't pick him. The UK publisher picked Pearson then forced him and the book on Glidrose.

However that novel suffers the same fault as this book and tails off badly.

Again you are right. I distinctly remember when I first read his Bond novel many decades ago feeling how sketchy everything became at the end. Like Pearson was in a hurry to round everything off. Shame he didn't write a follow-up. Irma Bunt, oversized rats and Crumper's Dick.

[AMC Hornet]

BTW I also have a first-edition Putnam HC of Colonel Sun (the one with the Daliesque landscape). Again, the only one I've ever seen.

You mean Harper & Row? Putnam didn't publish the book. BTW, the cover art was on the Jonathan Cape UK edition.

Quite right - Harper & Row it is. I was looking at the face of the book, not the spine.

I also have Pearson's Biography of Bond in a first Pan paperback, as well as in the new HC reprint. I'm only sorry I didn't know about and/or come across that little jem sooner than '76 - it would have helped pass the time between finishing Colonel Sun and discovering Wood's JBTSWLM novelization.

[Single-O-Seven]

Irma Bunt, oversized rats and Crumper's Dick.

I hear that if you mix Irma Bunt and large rats into your varied escapades, Crumper's Dick surely follows.

[Mark_Hazard]

Black, with a gold-tinted double-exposure portrait of Fleming - full-face and profile, overlaid. (McGraw Hill)

The corners and edges of the dust cover are a bit frayed, but I treasure it anyway.

BTW I also have a first-edition Putnam HC of Colonel Sun (the one with the Daliesque landscape). Again, the only one I've ever seen.

Sounds as if it's much like the Cape first (and similar to the Pan early editions), but I'm pretty sure that their cover photos are of a Fleming bust.