Got an old paperback of Moonraker gathering dust on your bookshelf? Get it down to this year’s Antiquarian Book Fair and it could make you £55,000. But unearth a first edition of Marilyn Monroe’s favourite book and you could REALLY hit the jackpot...

While Marilyn Monroe used to enjoy reading James Joyce’s challenging novel Ulysses aloud to make sense of it, if you find a first edition in good condition complete with dust jacket, you could make £250,000

Sometimes, you really should judge a book by the cover – it might make you money.

Blow the dust from that old James Bond hardback propping up a spider plant in the sitting room.

Does it reveal a first edition, complete with slightly sinister dust jacket by acclaimed British illustrator Richard Chopping?

Then it could be worth £3,100 (as long as you haven’t watered the plant recently). That’s the asking price for a skull-adorned copy of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger at the 58th London Antiquarian Book Fair, which opens at Olympia on Thursday.

Ten years ago Fleming collectors would have been at the front of the queue to claim it, but now there are likely to be just as many Chopping fans.

The increasing popularity of dust-jacket collecting is just one aspect of a burgeoning rare book market that runs from modernists such as James Joyce to mammoth examples of the printer’s art.

The Birds Of America by early 19th century painter and naturalist John James Audubon sold for an astonishing £7,321,250 in 2010 at Christie’s London auction rooms.

Internationally, the rare book market is worth over £322.25 million annually, big enough to ensure that crowds of enthusiastic bibliophiles will be pushing through the doors of Olympia next weekend.

Among them will be the legendary book dealer and international Booker Prize judge Rick Gekoski.

‘Nobody gets rich doing this,’ says Gekoski, now 70, ruefully.

‘The biggest book firms might have a turnover of say £10 million or £15 million, and profits of even a few hundred thousand in a year are very rare in the trade.

'Rather it’s the possibility that this time you’ll find something special.’

For Gekoski, that something special is often in the small personal details.

‘I have a copy of The Return Of AJ Raffles by Graham Greene,’ he says.

‘It’s not a particularly important play but Greene signed the book to Catherine Walston, the great love of his life.

'She was a femme fatale who caught Greene by asking him to be her godfather when she joined the Catholic Church. I’d say it’s worth £3,600, but more importantly that copy of the book brings back the wonderful story of this fantastic seduction.’

Copies signed by the author are increasingly sought after by collectors. They add both value and what Gekoski calls the ‘alchemy of the writer’s presence’.

However, some writers are more generous inscribers than others.

‘Ernest Hemingway was a very sociable guy,’ says Gekoski. ‘He liked to drink and when he did, he liked to give people his books, so he signed many.

'TS Eliot signed a little bit but Thomas Pynchon rarely ever does.’

Which is good news if you own one of his books. In the U.S., signed first editions of Pynchon’s 1997 novel Mason And Dixon fetch over $50,000, but how can you be sure a signature is genuine?

‘There have been a number of faked Hemingway inscriptions,’ says Gekoski.

‘Though they wouldn’t fool somebody who really knew Hemingway’s hand. A good forger can even make ink from the Twenties but at the £2,500 price level and below people take it for granted that things are all right and 99 per cent of the time they are.’

More than 30 years in the business has taught Gekoski a simple rule that equally applies if you are just starting to collect or are an established dealer with a list of rich clients.

‘The earlier the book,’ he says, ‘then the less known the author. The less known the author then the less copies they’ll print. The less copies they print, the higher the price.’

He cites a first edition of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone as an example.

‘When Bloomsbury signed JK Rowling an editor took her to lunch and said: ‘We are happy to publish this but nobody makes money out of children’s books.’

Consequently Bloomsbury only printed 500 copies of the first edition of The Philosopher’s Stone in 1997. I’ve had a copy of that first edition reach £20,000.’

If that’s slightly out of your range we’ve picked ten other fascinating books you can find on the stands at this year’s show.

The London International Antiquarian Book Fair is at Olympia from Thursday to May 30, www.olympiabookfair.com

Ten rare titles to look out for at this year’s fair

1. Moonraker (1955), Ian Fleming

Value: £55,000

Ian Fleming’s adventurer brother Peter is often cited as the prototype Bond, but the hawkishly handsome Ivar Bryce, his close friend at Eton and a renowned womaniser, inspired 007’s sexual success

It’s hard to think of a 007 book with better provenance than this first-edition copy of Moonraker, inscribed and presented by Ian Fleming to Ivar Bryce, his close friend at Eton. Bryce was also a fellow employee of British intelligence during the Second World War, working in New York alongside Roald Dahl (who would go on to write the screenplay for the 1967 film You Only Live Twice, starring Sean Connery). Such personal details from a truly world-famous author can have a startling effect on price and the Bryce Moonraker is expected to demand upwards of £55,000. Fleming’s adventurer brother Peter is often cited as the prototype Bond, but the hawkishly handsome Bryce, a renowned womaniser, inspired 007’s sexual success. Ironically, Bond’s charms fail in Moonraker. Shortly after she has helped 007 launch a nuclear missile into the North Sea, Special Branch officer Gala Brand rejects him for her fiancé.

2. The Lord Of The Rings (1954-55) /Songs For The Philologists (1936), JRR Tolkien

Value: £20,000/£13,550

Near-pristine sets of the three-volume Lord Of The Rings first editions don’t come up for sale often, which is why this copy – complete with maps and illustrations by the author – is expected to fetch over £20,000

Near-pristine sets of the three-volume Lord Of The Rings first editions don’t come up for sale often, which is why this copy – complete with maps and illustrations by the author – is expected to fetch over £20,000. The fair also offers a glimpse of a younger Tolkien. In the early Twenties, he and colleagues at the University of Leeds formed the Viking Club, meeting to drink ale and write poetry inspired by Norse sagas. The poems were gathered together as Songs For The Philologists in the Thirties, but most copies were destroyed in a disastrous fire as the One Ring one day would be. That makes this rare survivor worth £13,550.

3. The Mysterious Affair At Styles (1921), Agatha Christie

Value: £13,000

Agatha Christie joined a Voluntary Aid unit on the South Coast nursing the wounded from France, assisting at operations. Having seen so much blood in real life, she kept her fictional world relatively gore-free

This faded first edition of Christie’s first novel – the inaugural outing for detective Hercule Poirot – was published in 1921 when First World War rationing meant books were still printed on inferior paper. So to find a copy in this condition – ‘exceptional’ according to the experts – is a rare event, pushing the price to £13,000. The conflict also had a marked effect on the author. Christie joined a Voluntary Aid unit on the South Coast nursing the wounded from France, assisting at operations and, as she later remembered, ‘putting amputated limbs in the furnaces’. Having seen so much blood in real life, Christie kept her fictional world relatively gore-free. In The Mysterious Affair At Styles the murder is by strychnine poisoning.

4. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (1865) and Through The Looking-Glass... (1871), Lewis Carroll

Value: £9,250

Lewis Carroll completed Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There in daily ten-hour stints at his writing lectern

Lewis Carroll prefigured the current health fad for standing up as you work by 150 years – he completed Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and its sequel Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There in daily ten-hour stints at his writing lectern. Elsewhere at the fair, an 1867 third edition of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland is expected to fetch only £950. But these unique editions were re-bound by the famed 20th-century English bookbinder George Baytun – the smock-wearing master craftsman who became Queen Margaret’s personal binder in later life. His outstanding craftsmanship pushes the price up to £9,250.

5. A Farewell To Arms (1929), Ernest Hemingway

Value: £2,500

The first edition of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arm is notable for the complete absence of the profanities with which the writer littered the manuscript of his First World War love story

If you ever come across James Joyce’s personal book collection then look out for the Irish author’s signed copy of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel. The first edition is notable for the complete absence of the profanities with which Hemingway littered the manuscript of his First World War love story. Each one has been replaced with a dash to placate the censors in the U.S. (even that wasn’t enough for Italy, where the book was banned as an ‘insult to the honour of the Italian army’). Hemingway was so put out by the changes that when he gave a personal copy to Joyce he inked in each missing profanity by hand. A fine copy like this is worth £2,500 but Joyce’s, with added swear words, could be worth millions.

6. The House At Pooh Corner (1928), AA Milne

Value: £2,000

Although The House At Pooh Corner is one of a special run of 250 copies of the American first edition signed by AA Milne and illustrator EH Sheppard, expect to pay only about £2,000 for it

Published in 1928, the third Winnie-the- Pooh story introduced the ‘bouncing’ Tigger. Although it is one of a special run of 250 copies of the American first edition signed by AA Milne and illustrator EH Sheppard, expect to pay only about £2,000 for it, as AA Milne would often sign books to increase his revenue. In 1905 he had published his first novel, Lovers In London; it was so bad that Milne used the money made from Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures to buy up the copyright and prevent it ever being republished in the hope it would ‘never be read again’. It worked.





7. Childhood’s End (1953), Arthur C Clarke

Value: £1,750

Arthur C Clarke's Childhood’s End inspired songs by Pink Floyd (sample lyric: ‘As the sail is hoist/you find your eyes are growing moist’), Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator

Richard M Powers’ artwork for the cover of Childhood’s End invented psychedelia 15 years before it actually happened. This makes the alien invasion novel that launched Arthur C Clarke a favourite of both sci-fi dust jacket collectors, who will pay £1,750 for a copy in good condition, and progressive rock musicians. Childhood’s End inspired songs by Pink Floyd (sample lyric: ‘As the sail is hoist/you find your eyes are growing moist’), Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. Before that, Stanley Kubrick tried and failed to get the film rights. Rebuffed by the lawyers, Kubrick turned instead to a Clarke short story called The Sentinel. It became the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.





8. The Pothunters (1902), PG Wodehouse

Value: £1,500

The Pothunters is one of PG Wodehouse’s rarer early works – had you heard of it? – and a copy in good condition can make £6,000

The Pothunters is one of PG Wodehouse’s rarer early works – had you heard of it? – and a copy in good condition can make £6,000. This one has miraculously survived a lifetime in public libraries reasonably unscathed, and at £1,500 should slip away faster than Bertie Wooster fleeing an aunt. The great humourist part dedicated his public school adventure to Bill Townend, Wodehouse’s best friend at Dulwich College. Wodehouse went on to correspond with Townend for half a century and his letters occasionally reveal the darker Plum within. Wodehouse told Townend in 1923: ‘I am undergoing one of my periodical fits of depression about my work. I don’t seem to have the vim I used to have.’ Happily the vim came back.

9. You Only Live Twice (1964), Ian Fleming

Value: £1,250

Although there are many copies of You Only Live Twice in circulation – 56,000 were printed in the first run – enthusiasm for Chopping’s cover art means a copy in this condition will go for at least £1,250

Published in the year of Ian Fleming’s death, this sought-after first-edition has the distinctive, if disturbing, ‘Toad’ dust-jacket design by acclaimed British trompe l’oeil artist Richard Chopping. Although there are many copies in circulation – 56,000 were printed in the first run – enthusiasm for Chopping’s cover art means a copy in this condition will go for at least £1,250. Why the toad? Chopping had previously employed guns and playing cards but Fleming’s last full Bond novel has dark themes of despair and alcoholism. To mirror them, Chopping borrowed a pet toad. It proved to be a reluctant life model, at one point attempting to escape Chopping’s studio.





10. If – A Poem (1914), Rudyard Kipling

Value: £700

Repeatedly voted the nation’s favourite poem, If was first published in Kipling’s 1910 collection of stories and poems, Rewards And Fairies. The poem’s championing of manly virtues was hugely popular