Bond is back (at Oxford Book Fair that is!)

A couple of lacklustre Oxford Book Fairs meant my hopes weren't high for last week's bi-annual gathering in Oxford. But I needn't have been so pessimistic. Bond was very much back!

There’s a twice-yearly book fair in my neck of the woods that – rightly or wrongly – I use to gauge the vibrancy of the Ian Fleming market.

And recently, I must admit I’ve come away disappointed from the twice-yearly run Oxford Book Fair.

Lately I’ve seen no real quality, or variety of titles really worth mentioning; and when I’ve spoken to dealers about it, they all voiced concern that James Bond books (which they know sell like hot cakes), were getting too hard to buy at a price they could sell on for. The message was clear: they’d love more of these ‘banker’ books – if only they could find them. [Also see also my blog last week about really nice books definitely being harder to find].

So… I wandered down to the last weekend's autumn fair not exactly knowing what I would find. But I’m very glad to report that Bond was – in the literary sense – very much ‘back’.

Quality not quantity

It was a slightly smaller number of dealers at this year’s one-day Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association-run fair, but it was extremely comforting to see that there was a good selection of books – at all different price ranges – for buyers to browse; as well as it serving up the odd interesting surprise (see later).

Henley-based, Jonkers, saw fit to nip down the road, and bring with it some Capes at the higher end of the range (including a very nice Thunderball first edition – and not too badly priced at £750 if I recall).

It also had a nice (but later print), Live and Let Die, as well as a pricey first edition Goldfinger and a first edition of The Man With The Golden Gun (see pic).

But what was really nice to see, were books on display from ordinary, much smaller dealers, who seemed to have bolstered their inventories with some interesting copies.

There was one dealer in particular that literally had Bond, and then some.

He was particularly pleased to have bought himself a copy of the Folio’s most recent (and final addition to its series), Bond title – Octopussy & The Living Daylights.

With this last missing entry of the set, it enabled him to offer a full 14-book set – for a combined price of £950 (see left).

A while ago I predicted that as soon as the final Folio finally came out, we’d start to see lots of people starting to sell complete Folio sets – and here we are. Priced as they are, this set works out at £68 per book. Yes, they can be bought cheaper – but not much cheaper, as I see individual copies all at the £50-mark nowadays. What the customer who commits to buying this set is paying for is the time saved searching for one-off books – over a protracted period of time. To anyone who really wanted this set – this would have been a quick, and efficient moment to snap them up.

The same dealer (see pics above), had a smattering of US Book Club books, a later impression of Moonraker, a book not commonly seen (The Adventures of James Bond Junior 3.5 – sadly a second print otherwise I would have bought it), some UK book club books, and some Gardners – including this unopened box-set (above right).

I'm not as up to date as I should be on prices for the continuation authors, so judge for yourself whether you think the £195 price tag for the Gardner books was on the high side or not.

What really caught my eye though, was an almost near-complete set of New Portway large print James Bond books, issued by The Library Association between 1975-1983 (for more information on them, see the 007 Files link here).

I’ve seen these online before, but have never seen one (or more), in real-life, and while they wouldn’t have interested me, for anyone visually impaired, this would have been a perfect find. The only sad thing, was that there were only 11 of them present (Moonraker was also there, on the shelf down) – which is a shame, as this was a set that was actually completed (so many sets have been left unfinsihed!).

My guess is that the dealer has probably given up finding the last remaining ones himself (I suspect he most likely got these in a job lot to begin with), but for any buyer interested in collecting these, having 11 out of the 14 is not a bad start, and by having most of them, it would be a good project to try and finish the set.

Elsewhere on his shelf were some Capes – not so great to be honest – but nice to see at least. There was a rough Golden Gun first edition (£60) - see left - as well as a later Diamonds Are Forever (jacketless – it was a 5^th print, but not great inside). There was also this nice mid-print run Casino Royale – and the best one of the lot – a Goldfinger.

Alas, the Goldfinger wasn’t a first edition, but it was a coveted (well, to me at least), ‘last edition’.

I’m not sure the seller realised this – but I did, and the jacket was superb.

So, Goldfinger was a book that out of the selection shown so far was one that I actually purchased myself.

It must be said that lots of people are starting to want to track down the final editions, to complement their first edition sets – and their tiny print volumes (most likely less than 1,000 each), make these super books to invest in, and try and find!

Proof that later prints really were popular came from second dealer I spotted, who had an absolutely ‘superb’ set of three reprints – all with fantastic as-new covers – and page blocks (see pics above,) of Dr No, Goldfinger and Live and Let Die.

Of particular note - was the Goldfinger, which comprised the singluar edition that had the same photo of Fleming that was used for the back jacket of Octopussy.

But while they were all really nice, they were - sadly - mid-print-run books, ie neither very early reprints (which might have interested me), nor last prints. Being somewhere in the middle, they were good to see, but couldn't tempt me to buy them. Also, the prices were (I thought), on the high side – all more than £200 each.

A different seller did stop me in my tracks however – proudly showing off what looked like a lovely Moonraker – in original jacket. Sadly, it was a 1964 reprint. My heart did skip a beat when I thought it might be a first impression.

Where I did see first editions, they were not the best quality unfortunately, – however, they were at least good to see, and are a sign that dealers are able to invest in them. This (above left) seller had a nice group of three.

Elsewhere amongst the dealer room, I saw some very nice paperbacks (see this very nice Live and Let Die), and another book you don’t see very often in the flesh – ‘How 007 Got His Name’. (also see pics above). I cannot, I’m afraid recall the price, but it was a nice surprise to see it.

But you’ll recall I said there were also some surprises.

The first of which was seeing well-known British actor Neal Pearson (of UK comedy, Drop the Dead Donkey, as well as the Bridget Jones movies and lots more) – who believe it or lives a double life being a  book dealer in his spare time!

He had his own – very nice – stall featuring some interesting books. For Bond fans, he had a signed Gardner (£300) and a first edition of Richard Chopping’s ‘The Ring’ (£95).

Neal was most pleasant to speak to, and revealed he has been a book collector all his adult life. He added that much like many collectors, he’s built up spares, duplicates, and books he’s upgraded, and so decided some time ago to have a small side-hustle going alongside his acting. This year, he says, has been a ‘book year’ (after last year being on the road doing a Drop the Dead Donkey tour and other films). Who’d have thought it?

But perhaps one of the other most interesting people to showcase their wares was a lady called Roo Waterhouse – not a book dealer, but an artist... who paints books!

Prominent on display was her 2023 work – comprising a lined-up set of Pan paperbacks (see pic left).

Chatting to her was also great fun.

She says she is a total a book person (she must be to want to paint them!), and she says it was while exhibiting other book paintings at book fairs that she first saw the Ian Fleming Pans.

Thinking they looked interesting, she says she decided they should be her next ‘subjects’ to paint.

She said she spent the next few book fairs she was at gathering a complete set together, and finally sat down to paint this picture nearly three years ago.

The original oil painting was for sale for £1,600, while limited edition prints could also be bought.

Here's one of own pics that she later sent me of the painting:

You can look at her other body of painted books at her website here.

She also sells smaller versions of her paintings as birthday cards, or blank cards for people to send to their friends.

The good news is that one of her next projects will be painting a line of Capes - which I think would look terrific.

The bad news is that she has a rule whereby she will only start printing cards from her pictures once the original artwork is sold. So, for anyone who wants the Pan picture as a plain card to send, the original has to go first. Last time I looked it was still up for sale...

So, was this an event that put a spring back in my step?

Without doubt it did. Having trudged past the stalls for the last couple of fairs, and not being terribly excited by what I saw, to see such variety, and such a strong showing for Bond was truly heart-warming to see.

And I haven’t shown you everything yet.

This OK (above) example You Only Live Twice first edition caught my eye, and I snapped it up. Best of all though, and nestled in-between some Graham Greene books, was this rather lovely Thunderball. To me it stood out straight away.

Why it wasn’t more prominently on display was a mystery to me. Plenty of other people could well have easily missed it. But I only had to take one glance at the spine to know this was in very nice, unfaded condition.

Out came my wallet for the third time in an hour.

Just ask my wife – that doesn’t happen very often!