Birds of the West Indies: An Account With Full Descriptions of All the Birds Known to Occur or to Have Occurred on the West Indian Islands
[Philadelphia]: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1936.
First edition, first printing of the birding book by James Bond, the American ornithologist whose name Ian Flemming took for his iconic spy protagonist. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born." Fleming noted in an interview, "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find; 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department." xxiv, 456 pp. Bound in publisher's gray cloth lettered in gilt; lacking the dust jacket. Very Good with light rubbing to extremities, light soiling and staining to covers and textblock edges and tanning to spine. Foxing to covers and prelims, lacking rear free endpaper. Checklists of birds of the Virgin Islands, dated 1958 and 1961 respectively, have been laid in.
Price: $3,500