About this Item
The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.375 inches. 244 pages. Review copy slip laid in. The dust jacket is in a plastic sleeve, taped to the boards. Previous owner's name and date stamped on fep. The first post-Ian Fleming James Bond novel, written under a pseudonym by Kingsley Amis. Beautifully designed jacket by Tom Adams. Following the death of Ian Fleming on 12 August 1964, the rights to the Bond novels were held by Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications). After Glidrose released the remaining Fleming works The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights they decided to commission a sequel in order to retain rights in the Bond product. They chose Amis to write the first continuation Bond novel; Amis had previously produced The James Bond Dossier a critical analysis of the Bond books under his own name, and The Book of Bond, a tongue-in-cheek manual for prospective agents, using the pseudonym Lt.-Col. William ("Bill") Tanner. For the pseudonym, Peter Fleming - Ian Fleming's brother - initially suggested "George Glidrose". Jonathan Cape rejected this name, claiming that it had no selling or publicity power. Markham was then chosen. Despite this, Amis's involvement as continuation author was not a secret; American editions of the book identified Amis as the author, though the main Robert Markham credit remained. Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE (16 April 1922 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986). His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Amis became associated with Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, which he admired, in the late 1960s, when he began composing critical works connected with Bond, either under a pseudonym or uncredited. In 1965, he wrote the popular James Bond Dossier under his own name. The same year, he wrote The Book of Bond, or, Every Man His Own 007, a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym "Lt Col. William ('Bill') Tanner", Tanner being M's chief of staff in many of Fleming's novels. In 1968, Amis wrote Colonel Sun, which was published under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Kingsley Amis had edited Fleming's final 007 story in 1965. Lunch, a quiet game of golf, a routine social call on M, who is convalescing in his Regency house in Berkshire--the life of secret agent James Bond has begun to fall into a pattern that threatens complacency, until the sunny afternoon when M is kidnapped and all of his house staff savagely murdered. The action ricochets across the globe, but quickly enough lands Bond on a volcanic Greek island, where the malign Colonel Sun Liang-tan of the People's Liberation Army of China is collaborating with the ex-Nazi commander, Von Richter, in planning a world-dominating conspiracy. The stakes have never been higher, nor the dangers more complex. Bond's allies--the beautiful, brown-haired Greek agent, Ariadne Alexandrou; along with a tough-as-nails former World War II resistance fighter--are quickly neutralized by the venomous Colonel Sun. Alone and unarmed, faces off against these two nefarious villains. Stripped of all professional aids, James Bond faces the deadly devices of Colonel Sun and his Nazi cohort in a test that brings him to the verge of his physical abilities. First U.S. Edition [stated] and presumed first printing.
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