Bang Bang. Chitty Chitty

Is Ian Fleming Sean Connery ? Is Sean Connery Ian Fleming ? Is Sean Fleming Julie Andrews, or Dick Van Dyke ?  It doesn’t really matter, because Jack Kennedy read the James Bond books and made Fleming millions of dollars in the United Kingdom, the United States, and worldwide.

Every bookseller in the world loves completeists  - collectors who seek out every edition, printing and variation of every book that their favorite author ever wrote. For Fleming collectors, this is not an insuperable task, but it is a costly one. The first three James Bond books are the killers:


Casino Royale   Macmillan 1954.  1st US edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket: 
$ 2500.00

Casino Royale   Cape 1953.  1st UK edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket:   
$12,000 $25,000 
Yes, that’s thousands. UK  first editions are notoriously scarce for all genres, as they are usually quite small print runs, and about half of the run goes to libraries. The print run of this particular title was  4,750 books.

Live and Let Die  Macmillan 1955.  1st US edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket: 
$ 400.00 to $ 500.00
Live and Let Die  Cape 1954.  1st UK edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket:
$ 20,000 to $ 30,000 

Moonraker   Macmillan 1955.  1st US edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket: 
$ 1.000.00 to $ 2,000.00
Moonraker   Cape 1955.  1st UK edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket: 
$ 6,000 to $ 10,000 

Or, if you want to but the complete Bond collection, all first UK editions, several dealers in the UK will be glad to sell them to you for about $ 65,000 at the current exchange rate.

John Gardner and others have written Bond pastiches, most of which are real dreck, and not worthy of note. As we all know, Fleming wrote more than the James Bond series. Many of these books are quite good, and some have had a lasting influence on us all:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang   Random House 1964. 1st US edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket:  $ 90.00 - $150.00
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang   Jonathan Cape 1964.   1st UK edition  A fine condition book in a fine condition dust jacket:  $ 175.00 and up.

And, the movie is great, too.