The Man with the Golden Gun.

All Fleming's previous novels have a decorated front board, and it was the publisher's intention to do the same with this book. A decision was made, very early in the process, that to block the whole print run with such a large expanse of foil, would be financially prohibitive.

'According to the publisher's book production files... the original estimate allowed for just four and a half square inches of foil-stamping [the executed design measured nearly nineteen square inches]... The decision to cease stamping a golden gun was purely economical...' (Gilbert).

According to publisher's records, 940 copies were thus blocked, a larger number than had previously been thought (though still a tiny proportion of the 82,000 copies of the first edition printed). The reason for its apparent extreme scarcity was that being the earliest copies, they were all sent to the colonies, principally Australia and South Africa. Nevertheless it remains by far the scarcest recognised discreet state of any James Bond book.

First edition, first impression, first state; 8vo; publisher's first state black cloth with the publisher's golden gun embossed on the front panel, in original price-clipped pictorial dustjacket designed by Chopping; a fine copy, bright and crisp with no tarnishing to the gilt, in a fine (price clipped) dustjacket; uncommon thus.