[Literature] Fleming, Ian. Autograph Letter, signed

To Larry Hughes, Fleming's Friend and President of his Publisher, William Morrow and Company

Goldeneye, Orcabessa, Jamaica, March 2, no date (presumably ca. 1962). One sheet, 10 x 8 in. (254 x 203 mm). Two-page autograph letter on Fleming's blue Goldeneye personal stationery, signed by him to his friend Larry Hughes, President of William Morrow & Company, regarding business, including the book-form publication of Ian's anthology essay series, The Seven Deadly Sins (published by William Morrow), as well as other topics. Creased from old folds. Includes a carbon of Hughes' response to this letter, with some pencil annotations, likely by Hughes.

"Dear Boy, 1) Blast you! 2) Like all the best publishers you waffle charmingly but avoid the basics. 3) How many words? What Deadline? How MUCH? (& Mr & Mrs Morrow had better dig deep into their piggy bank!) 4) All 3 Being reasonable I will acquiesce 1) because its you 2) because I invented the series anyway 3) because I can blather about the subject just as entertainingly as the next man. 5) I await with infinite patience your advice on the above but count 5 days for a letter here. But I shall be at the Pierre 17th - 20th & a letter left there would serve (No! I will not come to My Fair Lady with you & darling Rose) 6) I see Sunday Times are doing the CIA book. What a lot of ____ to be achieved! 7) B. is taking me dancing tonight. What I go through for my friends! But thanks again for the trousers & shoes which will allow me to Fandango clothed & shod. A warm kiss for Rose affectionately Ian P.S. I guess there was a hermit in the Triton. Haha!"

A wildly charming and humorous letter from Fleming to his friend and publisher, Larry Hughes.

Hughes was the son-in-law of Ian's lifelong close friend, Hugo Pitman, and was largely responsible for the book-form publication of Fleming's anthology essay series in The Sunday Times, "The Seven Deadly Sins". As Ian describes in the book's Foreword: "My next claim to introduce these essays was my suggestion to Mr. Lawrence Hughes, a friend of mine and a Director of William Morrow & Co., that he should publish them in a book. Usually when one makes brilliant suggestions to a publisher, a dull glaze comes-over his eyes and nothing happens. But in this case Larry Hughes was enthusiastic and, despite all kinds of copyright problems, energetically pursued my suggestion and gathered these seven famous English authors together between hard covers—no mean feat if you know anything about copyright and literary agents."

Lot includes a first edition of The Seven Deadly Sins.

By descent in the family, and never before offered for sale.

Larry Hughes, thence by descent

[Literature] Fleming, Ian. Autograph Letter, signed