About this Item
First Signet or first American paperback editions, first printings, presentation copies, inscribed by the author to his American publisher, Kurt Enoch (1894-1982), the "paperback pioneer". The individual volumes and inscriptions comprise: i) Live and Let Die, 1959. First Signet paperback edition, first printing, inscribed "To Kurt Enoch from Ian Fleming x"; ii) Diamonds are Forever, 1961. First Signet paperback edition, first printing, inscribed "To Kurt Enoch from Ian Fleming", iii) From Russia, With Love, 1958. First American paperback edition, first printing, signed "Ian Fleming '58"; iv) Thunderball, 1962. First American paperback edition, first printing, inscribed "To Kurt Enoch from Ian Fleming"; v) The Spy Who Loved Me, 1963. First American paperback edition, first printing, inscribed "To Kurt Enoch from Ian Fleming". The publisher Kurt Enoch was born in Hamburg and died in New York. After military service in the First World War, he worked in his father's magazine distribution business and gained a social science doctorate at the University of Hamburg. He rose to general manager of the business in 1920, then as partner and sole owner. After a distinguished career in Europe as a publisher of paperback reprints of British and American authors, Enoch went to the US in 1940. Publisher Allen Lane began his Penguin imprint in the UK, and in 1935 launched an American subsidiary, Penguin Books, Inc., hiring Kurt Enoch as their manager in 1945. Enoch branched off in 1948, to establish the New American Library; Signet Paperbacks being their major imprint. NAL authors included William Faulkner, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. 1960 saw NAL merge with the Times Mirror Company of Los Angeles, and Enoch played key roles in the subsequent development of both organizations. From that year until his retirement in 1968, Enoch held various executive positions in these firms, and following retirement he remained active as a book publishing consultant. Enoch's papers are now held at the New York Public Library. These copies are from the significant Ian Fleming collection of Martin Schøyen (b.1940), with his bookplate. Schøyen's private collection of manuscripts, which span all cultures and all time periods, is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. Gilbert A2b(7), A4b(7), A5b(8), A9b(11), A10b(7); The Schøyen Collection No. 20, 34, 48, 73, 79. Five works, octavo. Original illustrated wrappers, spines and front wrappers lettered in numerous colours. Housed in a custom black morocco-backed folding box. Large patch of loss and slight tears to front wrapper and first few leaves of Live and Let Die, some extremities slightly rubbed; else fine condition.
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