[IAN FLEMING]--RUPERT HART-DAVIS

HUGH WALPOLE. A BIOGRAPHY. LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO. LTD, 1952

8vo, FROM THE LIBRARY OF IAN FLEMING, FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY🍬 THE AUTHOR (“For Ian | on a very important occasion | with love from Rupert. | March 1952”) on front free endpaper, portrait frontispiece, numerous photographic plates, original green cloth, lettered in gilt, collector’s green cloth folding box

The editor and publisher Rupert Hart-Davis (1907-1999) was atꦡ Eton with Fleming (although he was closer to Ian’s elder brother Peter). Hart-Davis spent seven years at Jonathan Cape where his authors included William Plomer, Peter Fleming, Cecil Day-Lewis, Edmund Bluinden, Robert Graves, Arthur Ransome, Wyndham Lewis and Robert Frost.

Lycett notes that Fleming described Hart-Davis (who he called "Rupe") as "the best young publisher in Britian" (Andrew Lycett, Ian Fleming, 1995, p. 270)

The "very important occasion” in March 1952 could be Fleming’s marriage to Ann Charteris on 24 March 1952 or Fleming’s completion of the manuscript of Casino Royale on 18 March 1952.

The mark on theඣ upper cover suggests a cigare𓆉tte burn.

PROVENANCE:

From the library of Ian Fleming