How 007 Got His Name by Mrs James Bond (Mary Wickham Bond) First Edition.Octavo, Slightly toned green cloth covered boards with gilt lettering along spine in wonderfully illustrated, unclipped, very good dustwrapper, very light spotting to prelims otherwise clean interior, black and white frontis and plates with occasional black and white text illustrations, 62 pages
Author of spy novels, Ian Fleming, read James Bond's book Birds of the West Indies and gave his international spy the name James Bond. What was to Mary Bond the "dullest name in the world" would become one of the most well-known, much to the chagrin of the real-life James Bond and his wife. She didn't mind the attention much during the day, but her husband would get calls at 2 and 3 a.m. from women looking for James Bond. She would answer these calls irritably, saying "Yes, James is here, but this is Pussy Galore and he's busy now." Eventually, she set a meeting up between her husband and Ian Fleming, which led to them becoming friends and also inspired her 1966 book How 007 Got His Name (1966).