Jonathan Cape 1962 (221 pages): A fabulous, and FINE condition book and jacket - made all the rarer for featuring the rare 'dropped quad' mark (the spacer between the 'E' and 'M' of 'FLEMING' on the title page). This spacer 'dropped' fractionally during the printing stage and so was inked where it wasn't supposed to be, and appears as a small vertical line. Of the total 29,738 first impression print run, bibliographer Jon Gilbert notes that around only one-in-ten books carry this mark, making this a rare and highly-sought after variant. This book presents in fantastic condition - with a non-price clipped, original first state jacket with bright, showing vivid colours and absolutely NO spine fade. Save for small mark on the vertical page block, this book is in exceptional condition - very clean and bright and clean. This has beautifully white, and completely unmarked internal pages, with no staining, foxing, writing, annotations, folds or inscriptions of any kind. Boards are clean and square. Of particular note is the creamy white page block, showing none of the usual signs of browning through sun exposure. Overtly sexual in nature, and breaking the norm of being told in the first person, Jonathan Cape was uneasy about this book and only gave it a first impression print run of not much more than half that of the previous year's Thunderball. By bucking the trend for successively larger print runs, this 10th title in the series has become something of a cult book amongst collectors. Examples are already very hard to find in this very good condition, and even rarer still are such great condition examples with the 'dropped quad'. A truly stunning example.