The 'Ghost-marks' of Christmas's past...
- Peter Crush
- Dec 17
- 9 min read
This festive season I look at James Bond first editions with evidence of the 'ghostings' of Chrismas's past...
Most people who rare collect books will have heard of foxing – the unwanted evidence of iron particles within the paper itself, literally oxidizing, and creating unsightly ‘rust’ marks that cannot be removed.
On the one hand, many will say this is part and parcel of the natural aging of books, and therefore shouldn’t be something we get overly fussy about.
And yet, when it comes to weighing up all the things that impact condition (and therefore value), spotting/foxing is nearly always called out as a ‘condition issue’ – and normally as a negative. So on the one hand, we accept that cellulose decomposes, and yet we also don’t want to acknowledge it (or at lest dislike it), the same time.
Less often talked about though is ‘ghosting’ – which given that this is the final blog before Christmas seems like an apt topic to cover; because books that have it really do reveal a lot about their many Christmas's past.
Put simply, ‘ghost’ marks (sometimes referred to as ‘shadowing’) are annoying outlines that are left when something has had prolonged contact with the pages of a book – everything from bookmarks, to inserted newspaper articles.
Because paper is typically acidic, then over a long enough period of time (or if left in conditions with high moisture and/or warmth), any paper that is different, and left in contact with a regular page from a book, will see a chemical reaction to take place. Left for a long enough period of time, and it reaction transfers what looks like a browning stain/ outline of the offending material.
When it comes to the Ian Fleming books, I don’t normally tend to find that this is caused by errant items left inside a book (although sometimes this 'does' happen - see this genuine example of a second impression Casino Royale, above, which shows a rust-outline left behind from a paperclip being left inside the book!).
Nine-times out of ten, ghosting marks are (ironically, perhaps), caused by the one thing most collectors all want from their books – their original wrappers, or dust-jackets.
The problem with dust-jackets is that being of different paper stock, there is a real tendency for the front and back flaps of a jacket to leave these unsightly ghosting marks.
Although there is the potential for it to happen in all of the books, the one book that is most well known for it, is You Only Live Twice (as shown in the pictures above), where the patterned design of the front and back end papers seem particularly susceptible to this occurrence.
Here's another image below where you can see what I mean:
How to prevent ghosting:
Short of removing your dust-jackets completely – which I don’t think is what most collectors want to do – ghosting is something collectors can prevent.
ABOVE: You can cover your jackets either with paper-backed protective sleeves, or non-backed ones
The most obvious thing you can do is treat your book to protective Mylar/Brodart coverings.
Put these over your jacket, and they will act as a barrier between the two papers (see pic left) - and stop any chemical reactions from taking place.
In my experience, archival-paper backed protective covers do this job just as well as non paper-backed ones – but most people prefer one or the other. (I’ve not read anything that suggests paper-backed ones are any better/worse than non-paper backed ones).
Stacking (and tightly packing) - don't do it!
But another cause of ghosting that doesn't get as much attention as it should, is how books are stored – and by this I mean not storing them flat if you can possibly help it.
If you think about, if you’re laying books flat, and then piling other books on top of them (also flat), you’re adding extra weight, that effectively turns your books into flower-presses!
It stands to reason that the pressure exerted on books near/at the very bottom of the pile, will be much greater than that applied to those near the top. All that weight is literally pressing the paper of the jacket into the end paper it is touching. That ‘will’ accelerate ghosting.
Similarly though, even books stood upright can suffer this fate too, especially if books are crammed tighter and tighter together, as collectors attempt to squeeze just one more extra book onto their shelf.
Most book conservators will say that books should be shelved loosely enough so that books can easily be slid in an out without any real pressure needing to be exerted. It's worth remembering that books shelved too tightly have no room for natural swelling and expansion caused by slight changes to humidity. Some conservators will even suggest that when books are packed so tightly, there is no space for gases to escape from the paper, leaving pages even-more acidic – something that will speed up the deterioration of the inner pages.
BUT...is all ghosting bad?
I want to say, don’t worry about books that demonstrate ghosting marks, but I can’t, because they are visually distracting, and from that perspective alone, books that have evidence of ghosting are (deservedly or not), less attractive to most collectors than others.
If nothing else, I think ghosting marks are evidence of former poor former storage or mistreatment of a book (accidental or not), which ‘could’ mean that the book in your hand is likely to continue to age faster than other books around it because of the way it’s previously been stored.
So what's good to say about ghosting?
But there is one important caveat here.
Unappealing though ghosting is though, I would, however, argue that in one very specific case, ghosting is potentially something that has one very important validatory benefit.
This is that its presence can very easily prove the provenance of a book in one very important regard – that jacket that is currently with it (and has literally ‘left its mark), is original to the book, and therefore hasn’t been swapped for another similar one at a later date.
As previously blogs have explained, so-called ‘Frankenstein jackets’ (whereby a jacket is placed over a hitherto jacketless book) is a recurring problem in book collecting – one that buyers very much need to be on the guard to.
Sometimes this is done innocently – where a better condition, correct-for-that-impression jacket replaces a poor condition jacket, to create a nicer overall book.
Sometimes, however, jackets are added by unscrupulous sellers to deceive buyers into thinking they have a complete first impression book with the correct first impression jacket – when really, a very similar later jacket has been added on, in the hope the buyer doesn’t notice.
Adding better ‘correct-for-the-impression’ jackets is technically more acceptable, but even though everything is ‘correct’ from an issue-point perspective, I’m personally not 100% comfortable with this, because even though a book has the correct jacket with it, it’s not the original jacket that it came with. The good news is that you can easily spot this because any ghosting imprint left on the end paper by the original jacket doesn’t correspond to the new jacket now covering it.
Most obviously, this ‘mismatch’ is where ghost lines of clipped corners don’t match, because of differences in the way the jacket has been snipped. Or, the flaps on the current jacket are wider/slimmer than the ghosted outline that exist on the end paper.
I have to warily accept that jacket swapping does happen. Some will hold the view that so long as the book still has its correct jacket, then ‘what’s the problem?’
Clearly when jacket swapping isn’t even noticeable – because the condition of the jacket equally suits the condition of the book, and there is no ghosting present – then it’s hard to say one way or another that it’s even happened. My problem however, is when it ‘is’ obvious – as evidenced by mis-alignments of the jacket to the end paper shown by any ghosting.
I still maintain, that if you have a book showing ghosting, and this reveals quite starkly, that there’s now a different jacket to what the original ghosting marks present, then it’s a bad marriage, and it detracts, and it worsens a book.
When ghosting ‘proves’ the jacket is original to that book
There’s a few examples where there’s very good reason for ghosting to prove that the jacket now worn by a particular book is original to that book (or not, as the case may be).
This is when you have books where there are different ‘states’ of a first edition jacket (or even later impressions of a very few number of jackets that look the same as first impression jackets), and you want to make sure the book that’s in your hand hasn't come from a later book.
For example:
· On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: First through to third impression dust-jackets from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service are identical – even the price is the same. Price is usually one of the elements that changes, but this particular title had five impressions in the same year, meaning they are all priced the same. There is a slight change the back panel of 4th and 5th impression jackets, which now say that From Russia With Love is ‘Now a highly successful film’. That's because it had just appeared in cinemas. The first three impressions simply said ‘From Russia With Love – ‘to be filmed in 1963).
· The Spy Who Loved Me: Fourth impression jackets are exactly the same as first impression ones – and this sometimes means jackets from cheaper-to-buy 4th print books are added to jacketless first impressions. But if there is some evidence of ghosting you’ll be able to see if the jacket is original to the book, or added from a later one if the ghost-lines don’t add up.
· Live and Let Die: The is the book that is most susceptible to jacket-swapping, because 3rd state jackets for the first impression are identical to the jackets that went on second impression books. The only sure-way to tell if your first edition book has a jacket genuine to it, is to see if there are any jacket marks left, and if they correspond to the jacket currently over it. Of course, a later jacket added on a long time ago ‘could’ have created ghosting too – giving the impression that the book and jacket have always been together. That’s a always a possibility, but generally speaking, jacket swapping is a much more recent phenomenon, and not often done contemporaneously to when that book originally came out.
· Moonraker: Has a 'state A' second impression jacket that is the same as the first impression jacket.
And of course... not forgetting the one key book that really does benefit from having some ghosting evidence is: Casino Royale.
The reason is that this iconic first James Bond adventure had two ‘states’ of the first impression jacket (one with and one without a The Times review on the front flap) - see pictures above.
About 3,000 of the 4,728 bound-up first impression print run had no review, leaving the rest with the over-printed review. But annoyingly, some of these overprinted jackets were also bound with the second impression, before an entirely new second impression jacket (featuring 10 newspaper reviews to the inside print flap), were ready.
This means that jackets from second impression books have a tendency to find their way onto first impressions. (It's why you very rarely see jacketed second impression books). But, if there’s ghosting, and the edges of the current jacket don’t correspond, you’ll know you had a different jacket swapped on.
Naval gazing?
Some might argue this is book collector naval gazing, and so what if a jacket has been added (especially if that jacket is appropriate to that book).
Call me old fashioned though, but I like to know that any book I buy, and subsequently offer on jamesbondfirsteditions.co.uk is correct, and is as well-guaranteed as it can be.
My other response to this is that I would say that no-one (really) wants a book that they think is the real deal, but isn’t by virtue of some jacket hockey-cokey – whether it's happened some years ago, is accidental, or recent, or deliberate.
Here below, are some examples where we can see very good evidence that the jacket has always been with the book - because the very feint ghost lines match with the jacket:
Moonraker (below) - first edition/first impression: jacket and ghosting lines match:
Live and Let Die - First edition, second impression:
Below is a rare example of where a Live and Let Die 2nd impression jacket is still on a second impression book, and not been moved to a first impression book. This is no-doubt because it was formerly owned by Ian Fleming bibliographer, Jon Gilbert, and it's not something he would do. But also the 'ghost' lines are very evident, and it is clear they line up. With 100% certainty, this book and jacket go together (even the angle of the corner snip is the same). Any other jacket put on this book wouldn't 'match':
So, while it may not always look appealing, and ordinarily, it's a condition point, there really are times when ghosting can become your friend.
When it is there, it may not present a book to its best, but it can sometimes save you from making an expensive purchasing mistake…
Thanks for reading, see you in 2026..!