ANYONE with a collection of old books in their attic might want to go and check if they have anything by James Bond author Ian Fleming.

For on Valentine’s Day in Edinburgh a very rare first edition of Live and Let Die, the second James Bond novel by Fleming, will go under the hammer at Lyon & Turnbull auction house with a price of up to £6000 plus fees being estimated – not bad for a book which originally sold for 10s 6d, or 52 1/2p in today’s money.

The book was one of 7500 printed in the first impression of the first edition by publishers Jonathan Cape in 1954. It swiftly sold out and three re-prints followed over the next year.

The book for sale in Edinburgh has the original first impression dust- jacket that has not had its price clipped. The book has suffered a little chipping, a few small tears and darkening to the dust-jacket and a few other small nicks to pages, but is otherwise in good condition.

Lyon & Turnbull estimate that it will fetch £ 3000-6000 plus fees, and the estimate may well be accurate as a similar book sold for £4250 last October. If that book was in perfect condition it could have fetched up to £30,000.

First editions of Live and Let Die attract such high prices because they are so rare. Anyone wishing to buy it because they love the 1973 film starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour might be disappointed – the film’s producers took a lot of liberties with Fleming’s story, with Mr Big smuggling gold coins rather than drugs, for example. Paul McCartney rote the famous theme tune to the film.

Live and Let Die contains some of Fleming’s own personal history – while researching the diving sequences he learned to scuba dive, being taught by none other than Jacques Cousteau, co-pioneer of the aqualung, in 1953.

For those anxious to grab some Bond or Fleming memorabilia the sale on February 14 also has a rare copy of Goldfinger. Published by Jonathan Cape in 1959, the book for sale is also a first edition, described as “black cloth with gold coins in eye sockets, owner’s inscription to front endpaper, dust-jacket not price clipped, dust-jacket a bit rubbed, lightly soiled, and creased”.

As there were many more copies of Goldfinger printed than Live and Let Die, the estimate is £ 300-500 plus fees.

There are other Fleming lots in the sale of rare books, manuscripts, maps and photographs but Scottish historians and antiquaries are more likely to be interested in the The Atlas of Scotland, containing Maps of Each County, published in Edinburgh in 1832 by the famous mapmaker John Thomson.

Estimated to sell at between £1000-1500 plus fees, the large folio has an index map, and “hand-coloured double page panoramas of Principal Mountains & Principal Rivers, 58 double-page hand-coloured engraved maps”. The property of the Newbattle Abbey College Trust, the atlas is worn and lacks a spine, but looks superb.

The most expensive lot is likely to be early photographs of India, particularly Mumbai, taken by William Johnson, William Henderson, AA Jacob, and other photographers. The work Early Photography of India is estimated to sell for up to £8000 plus fees.

Lyon & Turnbull are also selling a rare 16th-century education manual. Entitled The Scholemaster: Or Plaine and Perfite Way of Teaching Children, to Understand, Write and Speake the Latin Tong, but Specially Purposed for the Private Bringing Up of Youth in Gentlemen and Noble Mens Houses, the book was written by Roger Ascham, a favourite of Elizabeth I, and was published in London by John Daye in 1571. The estimate is £ 4000-6000 plus fees.