Ian Fleming Bibliography by Jon Gilbert
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CanadaPosts: 129MI6 Agent
Has anyone bought this? I would appreciate any opinions or comments..........
This is where we leave you Mr. Bond. (Pilot, Apollo Airlines)
Comments
Firstly, the book is of very high quality and it's huge. You certainly can't read it in bed or on a trip, it is in the format of a large table top book. I have a lot of Fleming and Bond related books and thought there was little I could find that would be new to me. However, 80 pages in and I've already found a number of new treasures.
I wasn't able to download any pics, if anyone wishes to share them here, please email me and I'll send a few that could be posted.
Gentlemen, this book is by far the biggest find for Fleming and Bond fans in years! A big thank you and "congrat's" needs to go to Jon Gilbert for this treasure!!
Although not inexpensive, I have no doubt that it will appreciate in value as it gains legendary status - and even if I'm wrong (never happens!) you'll certainly get more than your money's worth in knowledge and pleasure from it.
I ordered mine from Adrian Harrington Books (http://www.jamesbondfirsteditions.com/shop/jamesbond/39130.html and they had the author - Jon Gilbert - sign and inscribe it for me.
I just can't recommend it highly enough.
This is the type of book you buy and have forever. I can see going back to it periodically over many years to check facts and read. I doubt you'll get this in the future at a reduced price, if anything, I see it going up as a true collectors item.
When I read Superado's post yesterday I thought I feel the same way, this book is just too much money. Then I read this....
I purchased a Golden Gun (not the signed version).
The difference in price is not too significant (unlike say the Taschen book), so I went for it. It also avoids me trying to upgrade in the future (probably at a higher price) - always an achilles heel for a book collector! If you ask Jon, I am sure he will also sign it (contact via Harringtons).
I just sent Jon a note, a great honor and well deserved!!
I think they release these things at such high prices because they know the truly addicted collector will pay it, leaving the financial burdened Bond lover SOL.
Randy
Don't hold your breath while you wait. I don't see them producing either. I have heard there is a trade edition that is cheaper but not by much. I live on a disability income and can't spend that kind of money on one book. I did drop $300 for 8 of the Easton Press 2005 Leather Bound editions. If I didn't have an amazon credit account, I couldn't have done even that.
Randy
This is not just "...of what all he wrote." It is the definitive volume on Ian Fleming. It is a biography that compliments those of John Pearson and Andrew Lycett, and a complete publishing history of Fleming the likes of which has never before been compiled let alone published. It is an enormous volume of inestimable research value for scholars, researchers, writers and historians - which is why it recently received the Breslauer Prize - and a work of fantastic enjoyment for any genuine literary fan of Fleming and Bond. This is not a cash grab or an effort to take advantage of gullible collectors. It's also not a cynical manufactured collector's item like so many fancy limited editions out there that are actually anything but. Anyone who knows anything about publishing would know that a book of this size costs a fortune to print, bind and distribute. The only way to reduce the per unit cost is to print in massive quantities yet this is not a subject matter for the average Bond reader let alone the average general reader and therefore it would never enjoy massive sales. Consequently we are left with a book that will leave all of those fortunate enough to own it with something that they can read, flick through and enjoy for years and years to come. I doubt that many buyers will be picking it up as an investment, even though it will likely appreciate in value, but purely as a reference and an exquisite indulgence.
OK, you sold me. I'll get one on amazon. It will be a pricey investment but I am a writer and Bond historian so I guess it will be a needed resource in my work. Thanks for the best description of the book I have yet read.
Which limited editions do you consider bad investments? I would like to know if I have made a mistake with some of my recent purchases.
Randy
Delighted to hear that I swayed you towards buying a copy of the Bibliography. Despite its high cost, I am extremely confident that you won't be disappointed. Alas, I am no millionaire with a bottomless pit of money with which to indulge my pastimes, but one year after receiving the book I still believe that penny-for-penny it's one of the best book purchases I have ever made and I like it even more now than the day it arrived.
As for my swipe against some limited editions being bad investments, I didn't have any specific volumes in mind - and wasn't thinking about Bond or Fleming specifically - but whenever I see a "limited edition" book with a run of several thousand or more and priced in the hundreds of dollars, I am sceptical of its re-sale value unless there is something especially unique about it...like the inclusions of an artefact or the genuine signatures of a notable individual or group of people that can't later be replicated. A lot of Limited Edition Collectors' Items are only collector's items because the manufacturer says they are. A quick scan through eBay can find tons of Limited Edition Collectors Items being offered at below their original release price. If someone buys these items purely for their love and interest then it doesn't matter, but if they're buying with a view to making a profit, they need to take into serious consideration the size of the edition, the ability for someone later to produce another similar product and the size of the potential audience who will buy it. It's not a science, but there's a surprising degree of common sense involved.
I placed the order after Christmas and today, I heard a big thud on my door stoop, ta-da!!! By coincidence, I contacted Amazon UK customer support just this morning to confirm if items by Royal Mail will be taken back to the post office for pick-up if there's no one home to receive the package, to which they said, "yes," but turned out to be wrong. I would've hated for it to go missing but all's well that ends well!
Will do, 00-Agent. Tonight, I plan to read over the stuff at the front end, the preface, intro, etc. There's been so many recommendations about this book among Literary Bond fans, but really no substantial review or synopsis to be found online, so that I've been building up an expectation of what's ahead based on whatever snippets from others that do exist. I'm hoping for some really obscure, esoteric information, similar to the research that John Griswold undertook for his "Annotations and Chronologies" book, deriving much of its content from the archived Fleming manuscripts at the Lilly Library in Indiana. However, I'm getting a bad feeling that some of the pages I've flipped over contain, instead, lots of publishing minutiae about the Fleming book editions and other works that involve him; it was for similar qualities in the "illustrated James Bond" that made me mail it back after barely flipping over the first half of the book. I hope my first impressions are wrong and that I do unearth some good nuggets of the shiny kind and not of the dried, chunky, fibrous variety of the organic kind.
Bear in mind this is a bibliography first and foremost. If you are serious about collecting Fleming books then its invaluable - it allows you to check every detail of books you own or about to buy. Most books are now sold with a note such as "Gilbert 1.1" which is great - you know the person selling has checked the book, dust jacket etc is correct.
As above, the primary use of the book is a reference book - you look up details on a specific book. Beyond this however it is full of interesting facts / figures & stories that again as a collector makes the book dual purpose - its an interesting and informative book to browse as well.
Although I am a huge fan of this book and in awe of the effort put into making it I can see that if you are not interested in collecting Fleming books (as opposed to just reading them) then its probably not the best book to own.
True...but on the bright side by the time you finish reading it, you'll have Daniel Craig's arms!
Yes, now that I have the book in hand, I have a better understanding of the content and the lay of the land, which was pretty much what I thought as posted earlier. The problem as I mentioned earlier was, no adequate review of the book could be found online, not even Amazon.