The unusual, and seemingly very rare poster issued by Jonathan Cape for Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice that sold for £4600 at TW Gaze.
Posters for 007 films appear regularly at auction and the early examples in particular such as Dr No can stretch into the high four figures.
However, this example promoted a James Bond novel: Ian Fleming’s You Only Live Twice, 1964.
A difficult lot to value, I imagine, it was estimated at £300-400 but ended up selling at £4600 in Diss, Norfolk.
In characteristic form, TW Gaze book specialist Robert Henshilwood’s extensive catalogue notes provide plenty of detail and background, noting the ‘Tea Chest’ stencil typeface used at the head for the author’s name and its contrast with the beautiful and classic trompe l’oeil illustration by Richard Chopping.
The book’s title appears in vertically descending English and Japanese characters on the right-hand side of the poster.
The the main image presents a photographic portrait of a Japanese lady (presumably the main female character in the novel, Kissy Suzuki), a chrysanthemum flower, an iconic Walther PPK pistol, and a toad sitting on a torn-out newspaper obituary for Commander James Bond.
