Goldfinger.

First edition of the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, basis for the film starring Sean Connery. Octavo, original black cloth. Boldly signed by Sean Connery on the front free endpaper. Sean Connery's casting as James Bond in the 1964 film adaptation of Goldfinger remains one of his most iconic performances, building on the momentum he had already established in Dr. No and From Russia with Love, and it was this third outing that marked the moment the franchise became a global phenomenon. Produced on a budget of three million dollars, roughly the combined cost of the two films that preceded it, Goldfinger recouped its budget within two weeks of release and went on to gross nearly one hundred twenty-five million dollars worldwide, a pace no film had previously matched. It established many of the conventions now synonymous with the series: the pretitle action sequence, the elaborate set-piece villain's lair, and the closer integration of gadgetry into the plot. Connery's performance in the role benefited from a character and a production that had by then found their footing, and it is this performance, together with those in the two films before it, that fixed the popular image of Bond for decades to follow. Much of that owes to the physical charisma and magnetism he brought to the role, qualities that made the character as much a figure of desire as of danger, and that shaped how leading men in the genre have carried themselves ever since. Copies signed by Connery mark the point at which the literary character and the actor most associated with him became, in the public mind, inseparable. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Richard Chopping. An exceptional example, rare and desirable signed by Sean Connery.