London: Jonathan Cape, 1964. First edition. A Fine copy in like dust jacket. Publisher's black boards (binding A, with "First published 1964" on the copyright page and Japanese gilt characters on the front board). Pinpoint ink blemish to fore-edge, otherwise a completely clean copy. Price-clipped dust jacket bright and attractive. A very appealing example.

"When Ernst Stavro Blofeld blasted into eternity the girl whom James Bond had married only hours before, the heart, the zest for life, went out of Bond. Incredibly, from being a top agent of the Secret Service, he had gone to pieces, was even on the verge of becoming a security risk. M is persuaded to give him one last chance – an impossible mission far removed from his usual duties - and Bond leaves for Japan." The twelfth novel in the James Bond series and the last in the "Blofeld trilogy," You Only Live Twice features Kissy Suzuki, who tries to heal Bond's wounded heart and bears him the only child we are aware of after Bond kills Ernst Blofeld, is affected by amnesia, and lives with Suzuki as a fisherman in Japan.

You Only Live Twice was the final Bond book published during the lifetime of Fleming, who died later that year. It was based on Japanese material which Fleming gathered during his five-week foreign jaunt for the Sunday Times. The novel is titled after a poem by Bash : “You only live twice: / Once when you are born, / And once when you look death in the face” (p. 7). The film adaptation was released three years later, starring Sean Connery, and with the screenplay written by Roald Dahl.

Gilbert, A12a, 1.1. Fine in Fine dust jacket. (Item #8012)