The James Bond phenomenon began one sunny morning in Jamaica as Ian Fleming pondered what to name the hero of a novel he was writing. Fleming said that he wanted "the dullest name he could find," and he discovered it on his coffee table. One of his favorite books, Birds of the West Indies, was written by an ornithologist named James Bond. Promptly christening his hero, Fleming began the novel which would change the direction of British spy literature.
It was January 1952. Ian Fleming was Foreign Manager for Kemsley Newspapers, the huge organization which owned the London Sunday Times and dozens of other newspapers throughout Britain. He had accepted the job in 1945 with the special condition that he be allowed two months paid vacation per year. Since the war, Fleming had spent those two months every year at his retreat in Oracabessa, Jamaica. The three-bedroom house was called "Goldeneye," which he had named after one of his favorite American novels, Carson McCullers' Reflections in a Golden Eye. "Goldeneye" was also a code name for a wartime operation conceived and led by Fleming while he was Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. (A personality sketch and detailed account of Fleming's life prior to 1952 appears in Part Two.)
This particular January, Ian Fleming's mind was on a number of matters; of most importance was his upcoming marriage to Anne Rothermere, whose divorce from Lord Esmond Rothermere was to be announced on February 8. Fleming had been a confirmed bachelor all his life. There are several possible explanations for his decision to write his first novel, but the reason he gave was to relieve his mind from "the shock of getting married at the age of forty-three." Another reason could be that he was simply tired of being "Peter Fleming's younger brother." Though Ian Fleming was a journalist, he had never written anything longer than an article for the Sunday Times. Peter Fleming was already a well respected author, and up to this point, Ian Fleming had avoided competing with him.
For whatever reason, Fleming needed a distraction. It was Anne who suggested he write something to amuse himself. The atmosphere at Goldeneye provided the perfect conditions. Amuse himself is precisely what he did. The book that Ian Fleming wrote in 1952 was CASINO ROYALE, the first adventure featuring a secret agent named James Bond.
At Goldeneye, Fleming initiated his standard operating procedure for writing the Bond books. Each day he rose about 7:30 a.m. and swam in his private cove. After returning for breakfast, his favorite meal of the day, he relaxed until 10:00 a.m. Then he would begin to type, using folio paper (forty-four lines to a full page, double-spaced). (Sometimes the paper would slip in the typewriter on the last line, invariably causing the row of words to slope down to the right.) Fleming composed at the typewriter as he worked. He finished around noon, after which he would sun himself or go snorkeling among the coral. After an afternoon nap, Fleming resumed work at the typewriter for about an hour. A day's work produced about 2,000 words. Next came supper, and afterwards, perhaps a relaxing visit from an island neighbor (such as Noel Coward). The next day the entire routine would be repeated, and so on, until the 70 to 80,000 words were on paper. Fleming never looked back at what he'd written. He emphasized that it was important to keep the plot moving, and by dashing through the first draft in this way, he created the "sweeping" quality of the James Bond novels. Only when he stopped over in New York or returned to England would he look over his manuscript and revise, polish, and embellish. Using a ballpoint pen, he corrected words and passages. Sometimes he added inserts written in longhand on pieces of personal stationery. During the following months, he would add the rich detail associated with the Bond books, title the chapters, and finally turn in the finished manuscript to his publishers, Jonathan Cape, Ltd., in the fall.