Bath Book Fair 2026: When Bond was 'back' and very much on display

Bath's two-day book fair was packed with some great Bond titles across all price points:

Above: What lies in store? What better sign is there than one pointing to books?

Remember me feeling despondent at the recent Firsts Fair - about my sense that James Bond first editions seemed to be the preserve of fewer and fewer dealers – those that I believed were creating a consolidation in the market, and keeping prices high?

I remember getting some feedback at the time, suggesting that one fair doesn’t necessarily represent the whole market, and after visiting Bath Book Fair last weekend, perhaps those criticisms were correct.

Because what was there before me was sheer delight.

Being slightly outside the London epicenter, I was  initially told by the organisers that Bath Book Fair attracts mostly local dealers (in fact some were first-time attendees), and (perhaps to my shame!) my expectations were understandably low. As one – more high-end dealer remarked to me before I’d really started to have a really good look around, “the general public don’t spontaneously spend £1,000+ on a book.”

Given that this can easily exclude quite a lot of Capes, I was wondering what I might find.

But worried I shouldn’t have been. As regional book fairs go, this was one of the most stuffed Bond fairs I can remember going to for a long time, with a really good selection of items all across the price spectrum.

What I spied:

Above: Those will OCD beware! Horrendous ordering of this complete set of Bond Capes

First to catch my attention – because they were hard to miss – was this complete set (above), of later impressions, being offered by Froome-based Peter Foster Rare Books.

Thanks to the more well known Harringtons, the Fosters are something of a lesser-known bookselling dynasty, but also in the Foster book selling family is Chiswick-based Foster Books (an actual bookshop run by Stephen Foster), and Paul Foster Books – which actually makes that three separate Foster establishments to Harringtons’ two! (Peter and Adrian).

Alas, I didn’t get a chance to look at precisely what impressions each book was – but this set was up for sale for £3,750 – with the intention that it would be sold as a complete set, rather than being broken up into constituent parts.

Also on the same stand were two Live and Let Die books.

One (on the left), was a first impression (sadly with rather faded gilt to the boards, and with a touch of foxing) – and with a later jacket.

Its price was £1,100.

The second (on the right), was a first edition, second impression – with a correct second impression jacket (the 3^rd state one, the same as what sometimes covered later runs of the first impression.

It was in overall better condition.

Its ticket price was £2,500.

First of all, props must go to Foster for not taking the second impression jacket from his second impression book and putting it over the first impression, to create a ‘complete book’. I suspect this practice happens a lot, and it’s not something I like.

But here’s a question – which would you buy?

To me, the £1,100 first impression with later jacket feels better value than the second impression book with the correct jacket. Let me know your thoughts!

Going back to the full set, without knowing the actual impressions, it’s hard to know if this was a bargain or not.

But overall, this first stand I had a close look at did nevertheless make for a good first impression (forgive the pun) of this fair.

The table of Bonds

Moving on, and not too far away was this intriguing table – proudly showing a big selection of Thunderball books, as well as several The Spy Who Loved Me books, For Your Eyes Only (UK and US editions), plus a nice 4^th impression Casino Royale (the first to feature the newly-designed cover that all the later editions would use), and a first impression The Man With The Golden Gun.

The Thunderball books were priced at £750, £875 and £1,000 – as differentiated by their overall condition – and it was nice to see that with three books of the same title all next to eachother, a meaningful attempt at linking price to condition had been made. Punters could very easily see why one of the books cost £250 more than the other.

What was interesting (I thought) was that it was the cheapest of the Thunderballs that actually carried the signature of Bond film actress, Martine Beswick, who appeared in the cinematic version of Thunderball (and also From Russia With Love).

There are collectors I know that would have probably expected this signature to give this book a price boost.

Those who follow my blogs, including one I specifically wrote on actor-signed first editions, will know that I don’t always feel the film/actor side of Bond should mix with the literary, book collecting side. This dealer clearly agreed.

Thunderball with Connery’s signature? Fine. Not anyone else (in my humble opinion).

I felt the others this seller had were a bit too expensive, including the £500 being asked for The Man With The Golden Gun. It was in great condition, but I think this asking price was a little steep, as there was nothing else significantly special about it (ie it didn’t have white endpapers, or the rarer bronze foil lettering on the spine of the boards).

The 'signed' Fleming

A big book, for big money

If collectors really wanted to see a Bond book that was almost certainly out of their price range, then this Ian Fleming-signed For Your Eyes Only – up for a cool £12,000 - was the that book.

Notable was that this was a signed US example.

Signed US books are - in my experience - a far less common sight.

This particular example came with a typically enigmatic ‘The rest will have to wait’ message from the author.

Interpret this as you see fit!

But this was a fair where all price points appeared to be covered. Yes, there was a five-figure books, but look hard enough, and there were far more affordable books to be found too – and uncommon ones at that. Take this superb condition ‘Bullseye’ edition of Dr No – one of the child-friendly adaptions by Patrick Nobes published by Hutchinson & Co in the 1970s in paperback.

Like so many attempts at republishing the Bond books in the 1970s-80s, the full set in the same format was never finished, and Hutchinson & Co only produced seven in total. Only Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and The Man With the Golden Gun were the accompanying titles in this set (see a previous blog about them here).

This Dr No paperback was being offered for £30. They’re very hard to find in nice condition. This was a good price I thought.

The best of the rest…

Elsewhere at the fair was a decent looking The Man With The Golden Gun.

Meanwhile a different dealer had this selection (see left) on their shelf – a later impression (4^th), of From Russia With Love, alongside some Book Club books, a paperback first print of For Your Eyes Only.

Of note was the jacketless first impression Diamonds Are Forever.

But to me, this seller also fell into the same trap as what the seller of the two Live and Let Die books had done – pricing a later edition (the FRWL) at ‘more’ than the first impression jacketless book.

The From Russia With Love had a ticket price of £250, compared to £200 for the jacketless Diamonds Are Forever.

I was sorely tempted by the Diamonds Are Forever, but the condition was just not good enough for me. (Although even I as write this, I wonder whether I let this one get away!)

Not Capes, but (below) I also saw these two Roger Moore-related titles: Bond On Bond, and My Word is My Bond – both written by Moore and both of which where limited signed editions of 1,000 books (and each priced at £325).

Reflections…

Is this evidence Bond is on a bit of a bibliographic bounce?

This time, I’ll refrain from making sweeping statements. But it did certainly look to me that dealers had finally managed to get their hands on some prized Bond firsts. At previous fairs, dealers had told me that Bond titles were what they wanted to have; it was just getting hold of them that had been the problem.

Somehow, it seems like the supply tap has been turned on - or, at the very least, these dealers had be able to acquire titles they were confident in selling.

That has to be good news.

Overall, sales across the two-day Bath fair topped £200,000 – beating the level set in 2025. I’m guessing that some of this will undoubtedly have come from Fleming sales – as I’ve only shown you what was there on the day I visited - day two - of the fair.

Who knows what else had already sold on day one!

One thing’s for sure. I’m glad I went to Bath, and I’m glad to have seen lots of dealers with some great Fleming stock. Long may this continue.