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Revealing letters from Ian Fleming to his dust
jacket artist Richard Chopping are up for auction
this week...
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Fleming Correspondence Auction
6th April 2010
Up for auction this week at Swann
Galleries in New York is
a an archive of correspondence from James Bond author Ian Fleming,
artist Richard Chopping,
and others involved in the production of the 007 novels. It provides
fascinating look into the creative process between Fleming and
the illustrator
of the iconic dust jacket images that are
so familiar to James Bond fans. Chopping was responsible for
nine covers between 1957 and 1966 beginning with From Russia,
with Love, through Octopussy and The Living Daylights, as well
as the covers for Kingsley Amis's James Bond Dossier and John
Gardner's Licence Renewed.
"No-one
in the history of thrillers has had such a totally brilliant
artistic collaborator!" -
Ian Fleming (1959).
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Lot 103 - Estimate $12,000-18,000
Together,
62 Letters
including:
12 Typed
Letters Signed by Fleming to Chopping; 9 Letters from Chopping,
mostly copies, including one carbon and one fair copy to
Fleming; and 41 letters to Chopping by others, including one
of the
directors of Fleming's publisher Jonathan Cape Limited, Fleming's
secretary,
and others involved in the production of the books and Chopping's
dust jacket designs. Single 8vo sheets. Mostly London and
Essex, 1950s-60s
The majority of the letters to Chopping are from Michael Howard,
one of the main directors of Jonathan Cape Limited, many of which
contain details about the jacket art, praise for his work, payment
information, copyright issues, and other related topics. Some
amusing letters between the Howard and Chopping involve the procurement
of a toad for the cover of You Only Live Twice:
1 August, 1963: "Dear Michael, . . . I decided that it might
be quicker (which it hasn't been) and more interesting (which
it certainly has been) to try and trap the toad myself" .
. . and proceeds to tell the highly amusing and detailed story
of his "Livingstone" - esque expedition with the curator
of the Colchester Natural History Museum to locate amphibians
in England.
Other letters are from various Cape staff members, Fleming's
secretary Ira Trueblood, and a few from companies that would
help Chopping with props, for example the Anglo American Corporation
of South Africa, Limited, concerning the loan of a real diamond
to use as a model.
The letters from Fleming to Chopping discuss specific ideas
for the jacket art, titles of the books, changes to be made,
and other comments that illustrate the care and detail that went
into their design:
18 March, 1959: "As you
will have gathered, the new jacket is quite as big a success
as the first one and I do think Capes
have made a splendid job of it . . . I am busily scratching my
head trying to think of a subject for you again. No-one in the
history of thrillers has had such a totally brilliant artistic
collaborator!"
4 August, 1960: " . . . I am delighted that you will have
a bash at the new jacket. As to the dagger, I really have no
strong views. I had thought of the ordinary flick knife as used
by the teenagers on people like you and me, but if you have a
nice dagger in mind please let us use it. The title of the book
will be `Thunderball.' It is immensely long, immensely dull and
only your jacket can save it!"
5 November, 1963: "First of all a thousand congratulations
on the new jacket. It is quite in your topmost class and Annie
loves it also. You and I are really a wonderful team."
Lot 104 - Estimate $500-750
Autograph Letter Signed "My Dear Enid" to
author and playwright Enid Bagnold, with Bagnold's Typed Letter,
unsigned, to which Ian Fleming replies. 1 1/2 pages, 8vo, written
on recto and verso of a single sheet, on "Goldeneye, Oracabessa" stationery.
Oracabessa, Jamaica, 15 February [1963]
Bagnold, best known for the 1935 story National Velvet which
was filmed in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor, wrote to Fleming from
her room at the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, about
her enjoyment of his introduction to the reprint of Hugh Edwards's
book of nautical adventure, "All Night at Mr. Stanyhurst's." Fleming
writes her that the tale always brings him to tears and, in closing,
that he "must return to writing about James Bond. He is
now Bondo-san and is having high-jinks in Japan!"
Lot 105 - Estimate $250-350
Typed Note Signed as Foreign Manager
of Kemsley Newspapers, to Mr. J. Ashwin, congratulating him on
a successful
year. 120x102 mm, stapled to a larger sheet on which Fleming
later typed a comment. 22 December 1954
After the war, Fleming was a foreign manager of Kemsley Newspapers.
He held this post until the newspaper group became Thomson Newspapers
in 1959. The note is signed "Ian Fleming" in ink but
he included the typed salutations of his assistants, Mrs Trueblood
and Miss Hulbert. The comment on the attached sheet states: "you
see, . . . once upon a time we had TWO secretaries !!!!!!."
Related Articles
Ian
Fleming Biography
Richard
Chopping
Obiturary
