A first edition of Diamonds Are Forever, in which Ian Fleming thanks his friend and fellow author Paul Gallico for “spread[ing] his wings over my first-born [Casino Royale]”, is set to be auctioned on Friday as Gallico’s private library goes up for sale.
Gallico, who died in 1976, worked with Fleming as a journalist on the Sunday Times. The James Bond author sent him the initial typescript of Casino Royale to see if it was publishable; Gallico told him it was a “knockout”, adding that Fleming’s torture scene “beats everything I have ever read”, and that the novel “goes in for frankness and detail far beyond any American-type thriller and could have a big sale”. “Get out of that office kid and write,” urged the American author of novels including The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure in a letter included in John Pearson’s biography of Fleming.
