'Firsts' by name, first by nature...

A few weeks ago, the Oxford Book Fair left me wanting; last week, the Firsts Book Fair blew the bloody doors off.

Maybe there was something in the air.

At the same time as collectors were lining up outside London's Saatchi Gallery for the champagne-laden opening night of the Firsts Book Fair, a mere hop, skip and a jump away, Tom Cruise was busy wowing crowds at the London premier of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.

And maybe – just maybe – some of this sparkle-dust was hanging in the air still, because in this corner of London, people's mission – should they choose to accept it, was to thoroughly enjoy this annual book extravaganza – and that was, by far, the easiest mission of the night. For it was ‘impossible’ not to be totally wowed.

Coming on the back of a dour Oxford Book Fair – a book fair characterised by lack of real quality (but only high prices), I was wondering if Firsts could re-energise me again; whether it could re-inflate my somewhat deflated collectors’ disposition. But for book collectors, and collectors of Bond books in particular, this was the event that put the ‘ooh’ into books again.

The warm evening air; the chatty people queuing up; the feeling of anticipation was palpable. It all added up to giving off a vibe that said everyone ‘wanted’ to be there. It felt like everyone had been looking forward to tonight's big opening night; and were eager (really eager), to see what was behind those closed doors.

When the wait was over, and the doors flung open, a small cheer erupted. We were heading in…

The top book collectors' event of the year

For those who have never been to a Firsts, this three-day book browsing marathon (kicked off with a ticket-only preview night that I was at, on the eve of the public days), is the pinnacle event in the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association's calendar.

For this reason, it’s the event many dealers want to be at, and want to save their very best stock for. As such, it hosted dealers from all points of the compass - all of whom were wanting to talk about-, show- (and hopefully sell), their wares – wares that this year included everything from illuminated 14th century manuscripts, to rare Tolkien books, to a Picasso sketch (yes I did see that), and even a cast of Noami Campbell’s bust (accompanying a large book of her modeling photos).

Some notable modern first rare books included a signed Mario Puzo first edition of The Godfather, and one book that draw plenty of attention was a fine-condition first edition, first impression hardback of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – one of only 500 printed. It was priced at a magical £169,000.00.

But I – of course – was looking out for ‘Bond’ and while IMF were doing their thing at Leicester Square, it was very much the Secret Service on show here, in Chelsea, Bond’s place of residence, according to Fleming.

So what was on offer?

It’s normally based at the home of Jonathan Cape – Bedford-Square – but for the three days of Firsts, Maggs Brothers – one of the longest-established antiquarian booksellers in the world (founded in 1853) – relocated some spectacular books.

And it was (I think) the only dealer there to be selling a complete full 14-book set of Ian Fleming novels (see below):

This exquisite-condition set – all first editions, including Live and Let Die, signed by artist Kenneth Lewis – was up for sale for £110,007.00 (can you see what they did there?)

OK, this might sound pricey, but this set was actually being offered on consignment - meaning Maggs hasn’t bought these books; rather it is selling this on behalf of a private seller for a commission [a much less risky way of doing business). Had this been a set Maggs had purchased, the mark-up would have been much more. As such, the advertised price was very sensible, and to my mind this is pretty much reflective of what a fine condition, all-first edition will set you back in 2025. (If you really wanted it, I reckon they’d sell for a round £100.000).

Unsurprisingly, Peter Harrington also had a pretty good selection (above) – including two very nice Ian Fleming-inscribed books – one of Casino Royale, another of You Only Live Twice.

A rather good The Spy Who Loved Me was also up for sale - at £1,250. Some might say this is steep, but again, the £1,000 mark seems to increasingly be the entry-point for a fine condition example of this title now.

And, let's face it, The Spy Who Loved is definitely one of those more Fleming interesting books. Although it was published in 1962 – and so can rightly be considered one of the ‘newer’ Bond titles – I think people often forget that this is the book that breaks the usual rule of every successive Fleming book having a larger print run than its predecessor.

The fact is, the first impression print run of this very experimental book (written from the perspective of Vivian Michael), was nearly 50% smaller than the preceding year’s Thunderball (30,000 vs 50,000). As such, this is a much more numerically scare title – and (combined with its excellent condition), I think is priced accordingly.

By comparison, this (above) £2,800.00-priced Dr No (good but nothing special I thought), was very over-priced in my humble opinion.

Big dealers, big books

As you would expect, all the other big Ian Fleming dealer names were there. Notable for their stock were Jonkers and Lucius Books.

Jonkers (above), presented these two rare signed Flemings.

One was a presentation copy of Live and Let Die, from Ian Fleming inscribed on the front endpaper to author and fellow Jamaican resident, Esther Chapman, "To Esther As grist for her ball point. from Ian. p.s. with love.” The second was a signed Goldfinger.

Lucius, meanwhile, had this very impressive row of Flemings (above), on prominent display. They are all firsts (including this signed Richard Chopping The Man With the Golden Gun), while also present was a coveted Ian Fleming signed limited edition (to 250 copies), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Number 219 to be precise. This was particularly notable for still having its original clear plastic cover (many were discarded). Yours for just £12,500.00!

Not just the big boys

It’s perhaps worth noting that while it will always be the case that the Maggs, Harrington’s and Jonkers of this world will get the lions’-share of attention; there were plenty of the smaller sellers there too, and they all had their own temptations.

Attending this year was Newcastle’s Keel Row Books – with a small, but eye-catching smattering of Flemings – this third edition Casino Royale – priced at £950 – being the pick of the crop. It was realistically priced in my view (considering the cost of exhibiting). A second impression Live and Let Die was also on display, plus the above selection of other titles. A very friendly Anthony Smithson – who has run the bookstore for more than 30 years couldn’t have been more ebullient if he’d tried. It was the ten minutes he spent chatting with me that reminded me about why we all just need to support our local bookshops.

A similarly chatty Mark Baczoni from Fold The Corner Books also spent an equally long time with me, waxing lyrically about his stock.

I learned that he is probably one of the most prominent experts of Peter Fleming (Ian’s once more famous writing brother) – with a display of several rare signed Peter Fleming books, and even some very rare uncorrected Peter Fleming proofs. I admitted to never having read any of Peter’s work myself, and he suggested a couple that I could at least try – something which I have promised to do.

An unexpected treat

But, here’s something I’m also very pleased to report.

Despite all the attention-grabbing ‘big’ books, I was contented to be reminded that at Firsts it’s not always the multi-thousand pound items that surprise you the most.

A chance walk past the stand of The Book Collector – edited most recently by James Fleming, until his death late last year – saw me glimpse something I had not physically seen before – one of the ‘sold out’ fine bindings of ‘Ian Fleming: The Book Collector’ - from Queen Anne Press.

For those that don’t know about it, The Book Collector magazine devoted its Spring 2017 issue to Ian Fleming, who first launched the publication in 1952. It contains numerous essays by editors old and new, family and colleagues of the author, as well as Fleming scholars, historians, bibliophiles and regular Book Collector contributors. A limited edition of 150 red-bound copies were reprinted as fine letterpress editions, on special (thicker) paper, signed by James and Fergus Fleming (nephews of Ian Fleming).

Handling it for the first time, I was very impressed with what I saw. The quality is excellent.

Apparently there is this one, plus some others ‘knocking around’. So, if you’ve ever wanted one, and thought they can no longer be found, I’d thoroughly recommend getting in touch with The Book Collector quickly. This one above was still priced at its original price of £150, and they might still have one or two left! Harrington’s are currently selling one for £285!

The best of the rest...

Above: A nice Moonraker (8th print) sandwiched between Flemings and continuation authors

Above (left): A few more from Harrington's plus, above (right) - Julian Roberts Fine Books

Conclusions and reflections

Maybe it was the champagne flowing.

Maybe it was the instant difference in vibe compared to my previous book fair.

But maybe it was just because this fair was bloody brilliant that I honestly walked around with air under my feet.

If you’ve never been to Firsts, you must find the time to attend at least once.

I was definitely thrilled to be back browsing fantastic books, and speaking to collectors and dealers. I basically had a whale of a time.

But there's one other thing that's worth mentioning I feel...

Perhaps it's down to the growing reputation that Firsts now has (it relocated to The Saatchi Gallery only about four years ago), that there was one small detail that did surprise me – the very thorough bag search that was made on anyone that came in.

And no, it was not primarily done to root out bombs. It was to root out books! (yes!)

The security guards politely told me that last year, they’d been a notable rise in the number of folk (ie the public), coming to the fair, and bringing rare books with them, in the hope of trying to sell to dealers direct.

Given that the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association requires all books brought by dealers to be assiduously catalogued – so they can only sell what they have recorded as bringing with them (dealers pay a selling commission to the organiser, I believe) – this extra level of security was clearly aimed at preventing any bootleg buying and selling, so dealers couldn’t make money selling books not already registered.

But it’s an interesting sign of the times that collectors now see Firsts as somewhere to try and offload their books, and I’m not sure where I stand on the very clear prevention of this trade.

Booksellers stay in business precisely because ordinary people drop in, off the street, with books that they want to get rid of. Dealers buy from the public all the time, and all the dealers present in London for Firsts are effectively relocating to a new location for a few days, just to ply their trade. So I’m not sure banning people from bringing books in is the right way to go.

As a ‘books’ person, after spending a day in London, I had two books on my person by the 5pm opening time. One was a fairly worthless paperback, bought to while away a few hours; but the other was a book I bought ‘at a bookshop’ earlier that day (and yes, it had a value high enough for the guards to be suspicious as to why I had brought it to this fair). Both books had to be signed-for, and when I left, security double-checked me to see that I still had them, and hadn’t palmed them off whilst I was inside.

This did, ever-so-slightly, spoil an overall great experience. I suspect this is Firsts just making sure that the three days ahead of them doesn’t become a free-for-all, with booksellers making money, off-piste so-to-speak.

But, at the same time, if collectors out there do have books, and there’s somewhere for them to go to speak to lots of dealers, I would suggest the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association might just need to embrace this a bit more.

Bond though, was well and truly on display. And seeing some great stuff on show will always make me happy.