First edition. Publisher's red cloth, lettered yellow to spine, in the original dustwrapper. Author's presentation copy, inscribed to Ian Fleming on the front free endpaper, "To Ian, With Love Ray". A fine copy in a very good dustwrapper indeed with a little wear to the spine ends and corners.

An exceptional association linking two of the most influential thriller writers of the twentieth century. The presentation is the culmination of a brief but intense friendship which began at a dinner party hosted by Stephen Spender in May 1955. Shortly afterwards, Fleming sent Chandler, then the doyen of the hard boiled fiction genre, a copy of the newly published Moonraker, stating hopefully in the accompanying letter, "a word from you which I could pass on to my publishers would make me the fortune which has so far eluded me."
Chandler not only wrote an enthusiastic endorsement of Moonraker, but also encouraged Fleming, who was growing tired of James Bond, to continue writing.
"Chandler's approval... seems to have changed the whole attitude of Fleming to his hero and his work and to have made him decide that his next book, instead of finishing Bond for good, would go to the opposite extreme. It would be different from any other book he had written, it would have depth and seriousness. Bond would become a 'rounded character' like Chandler's hero, Philip Marlowe..." - Pearson (The Life of Ian Fleming)
Since the death of his wife in 1954, Chandler had become a frequent visitor to England and he and Fleming corresponded and met often. The last time they were to meet was on the publication of Playback in July 1958. Fleming had agreed to interview his friend for the BBC's Third Program and at lunch afterwards, Chandler gave Fleming this copy of his just published novel. Within seven months Chandler's increasingly excessive drinking took its toll, and he died in California.

Stock ID: 40896