Ian Fleming Biography and List of Works

British journalist, secret service agent, writer, whose most famous creation was the superhero James Bond, agent 007. Because he spent some years with British Intelligence, Fleming's novels are said to have a more authentic basis than most spy thrillers. However, the books are far from reality, but offer exotic locations, beautiful women, and exciting stories. Although Bond's attitude towards women now seems dated, the books have been popular for decades.

"It was a dark, clean-cut face, with a three-inch scar showing whitely down the sunburned skin of the right cheek. The eyes were wide and level under straight, rather long black brows. The hair was black, parted on the left, and carelessly brushed so that a thick black comma fell down over the right eyebrow. The longish straight nose ran down to a short upper lip below which was a wide and finely drawn but cruel mouth. The line of jaw was straight and firm. A section of dark suit, white short and black knitted tie completed the picture."
(James Bond in From Russia, with Love, 1957)

Fleming was born in London as the son of Major Valentine Fleming, a Conservative M.P., who was killed in World War I, and Evelyn St. Croix Fleming. He was educated at Eton, Sandhurst. After resigning from Sandhurst, which infuriated his mother, Fleming studied languages at the universities of Munich and Geneva. He took the Foreign Service exam, but found himself at the age of twenty-three without a career. From 1929 to 1933 he worked as a journalist in Moscow, then a banker and a stockbroker in London (1935 to 1939). During World War II he was a high-ranking naval officer in the British intelligence. Owing in part to his facility with languages, he was a personal assistant to Admiral John H. Godfrey, who served as the model for James Bond's commanding officer, "M." Fleming organized the No. 30 Assault Unit, which was modelled on the kind of Intelligence assault unit the Germans had used in Crete in 1941. During a training exercise Fleming had to swim underwater and attach a mine to a tanker - this act became material for the climax of LIVE AND LET DIE (1954). After the war Fleming was a foreign manager of Kemsley Newspapers. He held this post until the newspaper group became Thomson Newspapers in 1959.

Fleming's first book was not a spy novel but a foreign correspondent's guidebook, which was issued for the education of his staff. In 1952 he married Anne, Lady Rothmere, in Jamaica, where he had created his 'lotus-eating home' and where most of the Bond books were written after his marriage.

The first Bond adventure, CASINO ROYAL, appeared in 1953, and it was followed 13 others. Casino Royal was partly based on Fleming's less fortunate gambling experience in Lisbon during the war. The work set up what became the basic structure for most of the Bond books. It first depicts Bond in search for clues. He meets a beautiful woman who has something to hide in her past. Then the villain is tracked to his secret base, and in the end Bond saves the world and gets the girl. FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE (1957) broke the formula: 007 appeared in the eleventh chapter. The book was a hit, and reviews were generally favourable. DOCTOR NO (1958) was Fleming's first leap into the realm of science fiction. The villain, Dr. No., has developed a radio beam and intends to deflect U.S. test missiles from their projected course.

Live and Let Die introduced Mr. Big; a new member of SMERSH, the enemy agency Bond so often found working against. Other famous villains include Auric Goldfinger from GOLDFINGER (1959), KGB killers Rosa Klebb and Donovan Grant (From Russia, with Love) and Scaramanga (THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, 1965). Bond's arch nemesis was the half-Polish, half-Greek Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the founder of SPECTRE, an acronym for Special Executive for Counterespionage, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. Blofeld appeared in three novels: THUNDERBALL (1961), ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1963), and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1964). In the latter book the character of Dikko Henderson was based on Richard Hughes, the Sunday Times correspondent in the Far East. Also other Fleming's friends were put into Bond books.

In 1956 Fleming started selling his novels to be adapted for a comic strip. He was asked to contribute to a series of articles for London's Sunday Times on diamond smuggling. The articles appeared in book form in 1957. Fleming published a successful children's book about a magical car, CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG. It was adapted into a musical film in 1968, Fleming also contributed to many periodicals under the pseudonym Atticus. Among his non-fiction works is the travel book THRILLING CITIES (1963). In 1963, the film version of Doctor No was released. The spring of the same year saw the publication of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, including a limited edition of 250. The cover featured the Bond family coat of arms complete with the motto 'The World Is Not Enough.'

"When Bond was in Paris he invariably stuck to the same addresses. He stayed at the Terminus Nord, because he liked station hotels and because this was the least pretentious and most anonymous of them. He had luncheon at the Café de la Paix, the Rotunde or the Dôme, because the food was good enough and it amused him to watch the people. If he wanted a solid drink he had it at Harry's Bar, both because of the solidity of the drinks and because, on his first ignorant visit to Paris at the age of sixteen, he had done what Harry' s advertisement in the Continental Daily Mail had told him to do and said to his taxi-driver 'Sank Roo Doe Noo'. That had started one of the memorable evenings of his life, culminating in the loss, almost simultaneous, of his virginity and his notecase."
(from For Your Eyes Only, 1960)

In between writing Fleming developed a passion for treasure hunting, not merely in the Caribbean Islands and Seychelles, where he followed old pirate's maps and tales, but also in England. In spite of warning's from doctors, Fleming drove himself in outdoor activities, and the final heart attack, which ended his life, came at the Royal St. George's Sandwich golf course in Kent on 12 August, 1964. The Man with the Golden Gun, finished by Fleming's literary executors, was published posthumously. OCTOPUSSY, a collection containing two of Fleming's Bond stories appeared in 1966.

In 1981 John Gardner started to write James Bond books and later the series was continued by Raymond Benson. Also Robert Markham (pseudonym of Kingsley Amis) has written 007 sequels. - See also: Leslie Charteris - Before acting in James Bond films, Roger Moore played The Saint in the 1960s television series.

James Bond (the name was taken from that of an American ornithologist), the son of a Highland Scots father and a Swiss mother. Both of Bond's parents were killed in a climbing accident when he was eleven, and an inheritance of £1000 a year let him add some other educational experiences to his boarding school years. At the age of sixteen Bond lost his virginity in Paris. He joined in the late 1930s the British secret service, but switched to the navy when the war broke out, attaining the rank of commander. Bond is a skilled golfer, card player, expert driver and a crack shot. Among his friends is American Felix Leiter from the CIA.

For further reading: The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis (1965); The Book of Bond; or, Every Man His Own 007 by William Tanner (1965); The Spy Who Came In with the Gold by Henry A. Zeger (1965); Alias James Bond - The Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson (1966); The Man With the Golden Pen by Eleanor Perline and Dennis Perline (1966); The James Bond Bedside Companion by Raymond Benson (1984); Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero by Tony Bennett and Janet Woolacott (1987) - Other studies: This Day our Daily Fiction by Robert Druce; 17F: The Life of Ian Fleming by Donald McCormick; Ian Fleming by Bruce A. Rosenberg; Ian Fleming by Iain Campbell; Ian Fleming Thriller Map by Aaron Silverman, Molly Maguire (ed.); Murder in the Millions by J. Kenneth Van Dover; Secret Agents in Fiction by Lars Ole Sauerberg

CASINO ROYALE, (1953)