In 1963, typographer Stanley Morison suggested that an exhibition be developed for the 11th International Printing Machinery and Allied Trades Exhibition (being held that year in London) that would showcase the contributions that the art of printing had made to the development and increase of human knowledge. The exhibition would be somewhat novel, inasmuch as previous such exhibits had examined the aesthetics of the art of printing more than printing's role in advancing factual knowledge.
The exhibition would be divided over two locations: the technical aspects of printing would be on exhibit at Earl's Court, while the more aesthetic aspects would be on display at the British Museum. Altogether, over 400 titles would be represented between the two displays:
The books loaned for this exhibition would come from the collections of 63 libraries and individuals, the major lender being the library of King's College, Cambridge University. But not far behind, providing almost ten percent of the titles on loan, was the private library of Ian Fleming.
Best known as the author of the James Bond novels and the children's book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Fleming also was a noted book collector. (He was one of the founders of The Book Collector, arguably the most respected of all such periodicals, which continues to publish to this day.) Fleming was particularly attracted to "books that marked milestones of progress," thus books from his collection were a natural fit for the exhibition that Morison was proposing.
Because Fleming's wife, Anne, eventually donated Fleming's library to the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana, we have a record of Fleming's exact contributions to Printing and the Mind of Man (often referred to as PMM):
Alexander Volta. On the Electricity...., 1800 Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species, 1859
Because of the significance of the books exhibited at PMM, many advanced collectors use the exhibit catalog (it later was revised and printed in book form, the last edition in 1983) as a handbook to guide their collecting efforts, especially if they are high-spot collectors....
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