The rarest James Bond later impressions
- Peter Crush
- Aug 6
- 8 min read
Most James Bond hardback reprints were printed in large numbers. But there's a select few that were produced in very small numbers indeed - which makes finding them extremely hard:
ABOVE: You won't find many Jonathan Cape Live & Let Die's with just three lines of published dates!
I’ve long thought it amusing that in the world of book collecting, titles are described as being ‘rare’ when their print runs can number both in the low hundreds (or even single digits), or the many, many thousands.
For instance, I’d bet that few would disagree with the statement that a first impression Casino Royale is a ‘rare’ book. After all, just 4,728 copies printed. It was the first book in the James Bond series, and had the smallest first impression print run of any of the 14 books.
But when you also have the Queen Anne Press deluxe special editions of Casino Royale – sporting a print run of just 26 – well, that’s also rare. So really, you could say, that in truth, the word ‘rare’ doesn’t seem to relate to a number at all. Perhaps with the Jonathan Cape books now, their ‘rarity’ is more of a ‘feeling’ of their scarcity – influenced more by what we think their survival rates are, some 60-70 years on, or how frequently they appear to come up for sale.
I say all this, because in actual fact, if Ian Fleming had gotten his way, many of the Bond books we think are ‘rare’ today could have been a lot less rare.
Why? Well, Fleming wanted bigger print runs
Fleming’s relationship with Jonathan Cape was often characterised by a feeling that the print runs they gave him were not large enough, and as such, they denied him of much deserved royalties.
When Casino Royale was being produced, for example, Fleming wanted Cape to rubber-stamp a first impression print run of 10,000 - more than twice what he eventually got. As a first-time author, 10,000 was a number that Cape was simply too reluctant to agree on – even with Ian being the brother of successful Cape writer, Peter Fleming. And although print runs increased with subsequent books, Fleming often wanted more than he was given (and so felt slightly under-cut).
This reportedly came to a head when, in 1955, Fleming famously had dinner with Mark Bonham Carter, from publisher, William Collins, who informed him that he regularly printed his author’s first impressions in runs of 40,000 or more. Collins gave Alastair MacLean’s debut novel (HMS Ulysses) an initial print run of 125,000. He reportedly offered Fleming a guaranteed first impression print run of 20,000 for Diamonds Are Forever, but Fleming – to his credit perhaps – stayed loyal to Cape, who agreed 12,500 (which actually increased to 14, 604 bound copies when it actually went on sale).
Sometimes Fleming’s bullishness about sales were right – some 19,000 of Goldfinger’s 24,000 first edition print run sold out within the first few weeks, but other times Cape’s caution was to prove correct.
For instance, Thunderball’s 50,000 first impression print-run was so large, that it hung around in shops for some considerable amount of time, and a second impression wasn’t needed for another three years. Some suggest this obviously too-large 1st impression print run actually contributed to follow-up book, The Spy Who Loved Me, seeing it’s first impression print run reduce from an initially-agreed 40,000 to just 30,000.
Reprints was where Fleming made up lost ground
Because Fleming was often disappointed with timid initial print-runs of his books, the astute businessman that he was saw him try to make up the difference through reprints.
He was a big advocate of regular reprints – often chiding Cape into doing them before they actually planned to.
It was when Live and Let Die was first published for example (on 5th April 1955), and sales of this book were doing well, that he twisted Cape’s arms to get them to rush out a third impression of Casino Royale. This was to specifically cash-in on, and ride the wave of the popularity of his second novel. This gave him an additional 999 copies’ worth of royalty income.
Some of the reprints were substantial in number – such as the 2nd printing of From Russia With Love – which at 5,254 copies was approaching half again of the first impression print run of just over 14,000.
Early title print runs: the numbers:
Title 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Casino Royale 4,728 2,264 986 3,021 1,978
Live And Let Die 7,538 2,092 999 961 1,000
Moonraker 9,965 929 2,018 3,025 2,023
DAF 14,604 2,006 3,004 2,001 5,027
FRWL 14,087 5,254 990 3,017 2,903
The above table shows the print numbers of the first five printings of the first five books.
As we can see, Fleming largely got what he wanted, with the total numbers of 2nd to 5th impression books either exceeding or just falling short of the total 1st impression print run [with the exception of Live And Let Die – see later].
For instance:
The 2nd to 5th prints of Casino Royale come to a number double the first impression print run, at 8,249 books in total.
The 2nd to 5th prints of Moonraker fall just short of the 1st impression print run at 7,995 books in total.
The 2nd to 5th prints of Diamonds Are Forever fall just short of the 1st impression print run, with a total of 12,038 books.
The 2nd to 5th impressions of From Russia With Love add up to 12,164 books – again just short of the total first impression print run.
In fact, it’s with Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia With Love in particular, that we see the print runs of the reprints really starting ramping up, with each of these titles having a 5,000+ run reprint within its first five printings.
The first five printings of Diamonds Are Forever total 26,642, followed by From Russia With Love’s 26,251.
This compares to much lower total 1st-5th print run numbers of 12,977 for Casino Royale, 12,590 for Live And Let Die and a little bit more (17,960) for Moonraker.
The ‘rarest’ of the early reprints
But also take a look at the print-runs labeled in red.
Compared to the healthy print run numbers of other printings around them, it’s these very small print-runs are the relative outliers on this table – all showing print runs of less than 1,000 books.
Live And Let Die is a particularly stand-out title – with three of its first five print runs totaling 1,000 books or less. In fact, the total number of books printed for the 2nd to 5th printings of Live and Let Die come to just 5,052 – substantially fewer than the total 7,538 for the first impression print run.
It’s these red-inked print-run books that – amongst the gradually rising number of the later impressions – I would consider to be ‘rare’.
Survival rates of the rarest print-runs
For those who want to own one of each impression – a pursuit that is rapidly becoming attractive to Bond collectors – I think this table perfectly shows just how difficult it is to get hold of 3rd impressions of Casino Royale, any second impressions of Moonraker and any 3rd-5th impressions of Live And Let Die.
There will be some collectors who’ll no-doubt say that all of the above is yet more bookseller naval-gazing, trying to make a later reprint seem rarer than it is purely to line their pockets.
Yes, reprints are what they are – ie not first impressions: which for some belittles their importance. But when some of the later impressions were a third to a fifth less numerous to begin with, I think that this alone elevates their importance/rarity.
Moreover, when initial print runs of these more scarce later impressions were under a thousand copies to start with all those years ago, you have to conclude that survival rates today of these tiny print run impressions are going to be minute.
It’s my guess that if you had 1,000 copies of a book printed 70-plus years ago, the numbers that exist today could realistically total just a few hundred – or even less – making these particular reprints very rare indeed, and likely much rarer than the small print runs of the ‘last impressions’
JamesBondFirstEditions finds some of these rarer reprints:
Keen to offer collectors all manner of James Bond first editions, I've made it my business to try and track down and secure some of these rarer later impressions.
A lot of them are extremely difficult to locate and then secure, but I've had reasonable success over the last few years.
I recently sold this (left) rare 3rd print of Casino Royale - one of just 986 that were ever produced.
But I'm pleased to say, that at the time of writing, I have one copy of the rarest printing of Moonraker - the second impression for sale.
That's one of only 929 books that were ever printed.
More detailed photos are currently being taken, and so it's yet to be uploaded, but if you are interested in buying a second print Moonraker and would like to see more images, let me know by sending an email to enquires@jamesbondfirsteditions.co.uk
I also have for sale a (jacketless), rare 2nd impression of Live and Let Die - one of only 2,092 examples.
This is up for sale, and can be purchased here.
I also have for sale right now a rare 2nd impression of Diamonds Are Forever.
This is the impression that had the lowest number of copies printed out of the first five impressions, at just 2,006
This book can be purchased here.
But the most recent jewel in my early reprints crown is this wonderful third impression of Live And Let Die - one of just 999 3rd printings - complete with jacket:
The book in question is in what I would regard to be very good condition - with clean inner pages (more photos can be requested), and only a small neat owners' name and some rubbing to the top and bottom of the spine of the dust-jacket.
Interestingly, this example has what Gilbert refers to as the 'B' jacket for this third impression - an entirely reset jacket, advertising Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever (with reviews on the inside flaps). The 'A' jacket - by comparison - was only partially reset, with the only difference being a small change made to the back panel - which was altered to say Casino Royale was now in its 3rd printing, rather than on its second printing as per 1st and 2nd impression jackets.
No mention is made by Gilbert about how many of each jacket there were, but given there are two 'states' of jacket for this third impression, then we can assume it's a number significantly lower than the headline 999 bound-up copies for this impression as a whole, and it is yet another element adding to this book's rarity.
In short, this is a book you just do not see for sale regularly, simply because they are so scarce. Even if you do so one, it's very expensive. Harrington's currently has one for sale for £1,750 - but its copy has a large tear to the front of the jacket!
To celebrate finding this book, and because only 999 3rd impression copies were bound, I'm offering this book, here today, for a special price of £999.
If you would like to secure this book, email: enquiries@jamesbondfirsteditions.co.uk
If you would like me to search for a specific rare later impression, just let me know. It's my aim to try and realise people's requests.
Keep coming to the website! I will be adding more later impressions soon, so keep having a look at what is stocked. Books come and go all the time, so don't miss seeing a book you want disappearing.