Signed book: On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming. First edition, limited issue, numbered 5/250. London: Jonathan Cape, 1963. Hardcover bound in quarter-vellum over black Linson cloth, top edge gilt, with original plain protective clear-plastic dust-wrapper, 5.25 x 7.75, 288 pages. Signed on the colophon in blue ballpoint, "Ian Fleming." The half-title page is inscribed by Lisl Popper (née Jokl): "From Ian to Lisl, From Lisl to Gianandrea." Autographic condition: fine, with a very subtle diagonal crease to the signed page. Book condition: VG/None, with minor foxing to endpapers. Housed in a gorgeous custom-made quarter-leather clamshell case, gilt-lettered on the spine.
This was one of Ian Fleming's personal copies of the book—the only Bond book released in a signed limited edition—presented to his longtime girlfriend Lisl Jokl. Fleming first met Jokl in Kitzbuhel, Austria, in 1926, when he was nineteen years old, and the two had a torrid, youthful love affair that developed into a lasting friendship. According to Fleming's biographer Andrew Lycett, Lisl was the author's first real love. Jokl was also one of only four people to whom he left a legacy of £500 upon his death. She likely inspired the name for 'Bond girl' Lisl Baum, who appears in the short story 'Risico,' included in the 1960 collection For Your Eyes Only. In addition to being inscribed by Jokl, the book was later owned by Fleming bibliographer Otto Penzler; accompanied by a card from "Gianandrea" to Penzler, presenting the book to him.
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