FLEMING, Ian.

£350,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The final revised typescript of Diamonds Are Forever, with Fleming's autograph revisions throughout, also marked up by the copy editor for publication. Ian Fleming's revised typescript of Diamonds are Forever, with numerous autograph additions, revealing Fleming's working practices as he honed the fourth Bond novel into its final shape. Original manuscripts and typescripts of Fleming's major works are extremely rare on the market.The typescript is peppered throughout with authorial tweaks, written in Fleming's characteristic blue ballpoint. Many tauten the plot, while some are apparently minor: a telephone number, for example, gets altered from Wisconsin 9.00456 to Wisconsin 7.3697. Others add vigour to the prose: when Bond checks himself into the Hotel Astor it was originally "in front of an elderly woman"; now it is "before a hatchet-faced woman with a bosom like a sandbag". Or, at page 88, "too many expense-account customers" becomes "too much expense-account aristocracy". While most pages contain one or two alterations, more substantial additions appear in eight places: at pages 23 (Bill Tanner's disquisition on American gambling), 79 (Felix Leiter on "night eye" calluses), 111 (the auctioneer's patter), 119 (a racing announcement), 120 (ditto), 194 (Spang gives Bond a grilling), 221 (Bond receives Tiffany's message), and 263 (the Captain's remarks to Bond). Chapter 17 was originally called "Bond Forces the Race" but becomes "Thanks for the Ride". Every now and then the n

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