The Spring number of The Book Collector will be a special issue on the theme “Ian Fleming & Book Collecting”. Fleming was the publisher of The Book Collector from its start and its principal shareholder from 1955 until his death. After five decades at the helm Nicolas Barker sold his interest in the periodical to James Fleming, nephew of the man who launched it.

Ian Fleming launched the Journal in 1952, the year he wrote Casino Royale. Its editor, until his death in 1965, was John Hayward, the friend and muse of T. S. Eliot. It continues to attract a plurality of contributors whose common aim is to share their enthusiasm and knowledge about books.

Contributors to the issue will include Fergus Fleming, editor of Ian Fleming’s letters, on “Ian Fleming and The Book Collector”, Joel Silver, Director of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, on “Books That Had Started Something: Ian Fleming’s Book Collection”, and Nicolas Barker, for 50 years Editor of The Book Collector, on his former editorial colleague, “Percy Muir: Ian Fleming’s Bookseller”.

Jon Gilbert, compiler of the prize-winning Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, writes on “Collecting Ian Fleming”, and Sheila Markham interviews two Fleming collectors, Michael L. VanBlaricum and Jeremy Miles.

Other contributions consider Ian Fleming’s friend the typographic designer Robert Harling, who too was a novelist, Richard Chopping, designer of most of the James Bond dust-jackets, and the output of Fleming’s publishing imprint, the Queen Anne Press.

The Book Collector revives a competition conceived in 1947 by Ian Fleming and Robert Harling for a 27th letter of the alphabet. Its purpose must be plausible, to represent, for instance, ‘nth’, ‘um’, ‘er’ or one of the many modern variants of ‘yes’. But what should it look like?

Celebrating Ian’s life as a bibliophile, it will be a fascinating read for collectors in general and Fleming fans in particular. The articles will be cast separately in Monotype – as they were in Ian’s time – and made available as a limited edition.

The collected articles will be published by Queen Anne Press in two limitations: 125 copies bound in cloth @ £150; and 26 copies lettered A-Z half-bound cloth on marbled paper @ £275, to include a reprinted copy of a flyer that Fleming wrote for The Book Collector in 1957. Individual articles will be available in a card-bound limitation of 125 with prices ranging from £10 to £30. As befits its heritage, this unique edition will be set and printed in letterpress.

All who are subscribers on February 26th 2017 will automatically receive a copy of the regular edition of the Ian Fleming Special. Subscribe here.Cost of subscriptions is £60 for the year. There will also be a limited edition for collectors set on hot metal and signed by James and Fergus Fleming.

Publication date: 10 March 2017

Incidental Intelligence

The Book Collector has spanned the fellowship of bibliophiles for the last 65 years. Published quarterly, it is the only journal that deals with all aspects of book collecting. It prints notoriously independent opinions on subjects that range from manuscript studies to national heritage policy, from medieval libraries to modern first editions. It has featured articles on ‘Stoning Charlotte Brontë’, Eric Gill, W.G. Sebald, Chapbooks in Nigeria, the Hollidays’ bookshop in New York, Patrick O’Brian’s pen-knife and Kenneth Williams’s handwriting. Its tone is pithy, dependable and firm.

The periodical has been redesigned, without losing any of the qualities that its readers admire. There will also be a new website with digital access to all back numbers as printed with improved indexes. In addition it will provide 65 years of auction room sales indexed by author, title, subject and collection with observations and remarks that can be found
nowhere else.

James Fergusson, previously the deputy editor, now steps up to be editor. James Fleming and his brother Fergus will be involved in running the journal.

Visit The Book Collector’s website for more information: