1John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming (1965) and Andrew Lycett’s Ian Fleming (1995).
2Ann’s two children from her first marriage to Lord O’Neill were Raymond (b. 1933), who inherited both the title and the family seat in Northern Ireland, and Fionn (b. 1936), who took her husband’s name on her marriage to John Morgan in 1961.
3Peter (1907–71) was an acclaimed travel writer, Richard (1911–77) a prominent banker, Michael (1913–40) a successful businessman until his death at Dunkirk, and Amaryllis (1925–99) one of the nation’s foremost cellists.
4Although the scoop failed he did receive an apology signed by the dictator himself.
5John F. C. ‘Ivar’ Bryce (1906–85), who married the American heiress Jo Hartford, had first met Fleming in 1917 on a beach holiday. They remained inseparable companions and would become involved in a variety of uncertain enterprises.
6Née Charteris, Ann was the widow of Lord O’Neill, who had been killed in the Second World War.
7A list of the works of Ian Fleming with dates of original publication can be found here.
1 Casino Royale
1Actually it was 1952.
2Waugh was not impressed when it came out later that year. ‘Ian Fleming’s idiot printing firm’, as he described it, had made ‘a great balls-up of a little book of mine.’
3Robert Harling (1910–2008), author, publisher and typographer. He had worked for the Admiralty during the Second World War and had been a member of Fleming’s ‘Red Indian’ commando unit, 30AU, in the closing stages of the war. He later joined Fleming at the Sunday Times, as typographical adviser. Among his many typographical innovations was the font ‘Tea Chest’, which would become a hallmark of the Bond dust jackets.
4William Plomer (1903–73), author, editor, poet and librettist. Born in South Africa, he travelled to Japan and beyond before settling in the drab environs of post-war London. He pronounced his name ‘Ploomer’.
5Cape’s only previous foray into thrillerdom had been James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934).
6A wartime intelligence operative and Fleming’s one-time girlfriend, she now worked for the Kemsley Group in America.
7William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (1879–1964), business tycoon, politician, press magnate and owner of the Daily Express which, for a while, had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the world.
8He did, however, employ Naomi Burton of Curtis Brown agents on the East Coast of America who successfully placed Casino Royale with Macmillan in New York.
9For tax reasons, and perhaps with a canny eye to the future, Fleming transferred the copyright in his work to a company called Glidrose.
10Paul Gallico (1897–1976), novelist and sportswriter. One of Fleming’s many journalistic contacts, he had won international fame for his novella The Snow Goose (1941).
11The font came to Fleming’s notice thanks to his friend Robert Harling who had used it for the Queen Anne Press colophon.
12Leonard Russell (1906–74), Literary Editor of the Sunday Times. Married to journalist and author Dilys Powell.
13‘Swanee’ Swanson was Fleming’s West Coast agent in the US.
14The London home to which he and Ann had recently moved.
15Fleming’s second Bond novel, which he had delivered that spring.
16Macmillan would publish all the Bond novels until Fleming moved to Viking in 1959.
17Sir William Stephenson (1897–1989), Canadian soldier, aviator, businessman, inventor and spymaster. Colloquially, ‘Little Bill’ as against ‘Big Bill’ Donovan, head of the US Secret Service. He had first met Fleming while head of British Intelligence in North America and their friendship continued after the war. Fleming liked to say that whereas Bond was a romanticised version of a spy, Stephenson was the real thing.
2 Live and Let Die
1Peter Quennell (1905–93), biographer and man of letters.
2It would not, however, always be a matter of jeopardy. Fleming’s female characters were often a match for his hero.
3Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney (1896–1951), British crime writer. His hard-boiled American-style novels were enormously popular in their day. In 1946 alone he sold more than 1,500,000 copies worldwide.
4The book in question was Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean (1911–96), author, soldier and politician. A friend of Fleming, who served as a commando during the Second World War and later wrote knowledgeably about espionage, Maclean has since entered the list of characters upon whom Bond is supposed to have been based.
5Fleming’s working title, The Undertaker’s Wind (named after the Jamaican term for a strong evening breeze), was eventually consigned to a chapter head. He tried several alternatives before settling on Live and Let Die.
6Malcolm Muir (1885–1979), editor and president of Newsweek magazine.
7Fleur Cowles (1908–2009), writer and editor. An oft-married and colourful presence on the US publishing scene. Look magazine was owned by her third husband whom she divorced in 1955.
8George Malcolm Thompson (1899–1996), Beaverbrook’s personal secretary and critic for the Evening Standard. He described Live and Let Die as ‘tense, ice-cold, sophisticated; Peter Cheyney for the carriage trade’.
9Leo Perutz (1882–1957), Austrian mathematician and novelist. Fleming was probably referring to his Between Nine and Nine (1918), a tale of romance and intrigue set in Imperial Vienna, which was translated to widespread acclaim in the 1920s and possibly influenced Fleming’s first short story, ‘A Poor Man Escapes’.
10Richard Usborne (1910–2006), journalist and author who had served with SOE during the war. As befitted the eccentric recruitment policy of British Intelligence he spent the last forty-five years of his life studying the works of P. G. Wodehouse.
3 Moonraker
1Alexander Korda (1893–1956), a leading figure in the British film industry.
2Alan Searle (1904–85), Maugham’s secretary and companion.
3The proposed serialisation of Maugham’s short stories.
4Alexander Frere (1892–1984), Maugham’s editor at William Heinemann.
5Bond’s secretary, but in real life the aristocratic society figure Loelia Ponsonby (1902–93). Fleming often appropriated his friends’ names for characters in his books.
6The idea was used in From Russia with Love.
7Maugham was awarded the Companion of Honour that year. He had, however, been hoping for the more prestigious Order of Merit.
8F. Tennyson Jesse (1888–1958), English crime writer. Her book Moonraker was first published in 1927.
9Here and elsewhere, Fleming was ahead of his time in the art of what is known today as product placement – though in his case it was for verisimilitude’s sake rather than gain.
4 Notes from America
1Ernest Cuneo (1905–88), lawyer, newspaperman and intelligence operative. He supplied Fleming with the introductions he needed for the New York scenes in Live and Let Die and was later rewarded with a cameo role as Ernie Cureo, the cab driver who assisted Bond in Diamonds are Forever.
2Noel Barber (1909–88), novelist and foreign correspondent.
3The memoirs of outgoing US President Truman.
4John Neville Wheeler, NANA’s founder.
5The Overseas News Agency, a wartime propaganda machine founded by British Intelligence, now trying to make its way in peacetime.
6Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892–1983), novelist, journalist and feminist who wrote under the pseudonym Rebecca West. Revolted equally by Fascism and Communism, she took a staunch anti-authoritarian stance.
7Cuneo was working on a biography of Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City, which would be published in 1955 as Life with Fiorello.
8Scott’s, then located on Coventry Street, was Fleming’s favourite London restaurant.
9Bill Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook’s nephew, whom Fleming had introduced as one of two possible investors in NANA.
10While it is true that Fleming was an assiduous note-taker, Cuneo’s estimate may be a touch exaggerated.
11The Spy Who Loved Me.
12Fleming was currently engaged in a court battle with Kevin McClory over copyright in his latest book, Thunderball.
5 Diamonds are Forever
1Fleming would later adopt the word SPECTRE for a criminal organisation that appeared in several of his books
2In 1957 Sillitoe assisted Fleming with his non-fiction book The Diamond Smugglers.
3It was to be the only time a Bond story was adapted for television.
4Claudette Colbert (1903–96), French-born actress and Hollywood leading lady.
5Following a deal with Pan Books the first Bond paperbacks had emerged that year
6HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean
7The option was not exercised and expired the following year.
8Adolf Hallman (1893–1968) had designed covers for several Scandinavian publications of Bond.
9Script editor at the Rank Organisation, who were still interested in the film rights to Moonraker.
10Where flights between the UK and America stopped to refuel.
6 From Russia with Love
1Hugo Charteris (1922–70), Ann’s novelist brother. He and Fleming did not always see eye to eye.
2For his part, the Conservative MP John Jacob Astor recalled that Fleming ‘sat on the forward right-hand side of the first class and was wearing a light Burberry (and looked like a Graham Greene character who was clearly a secret agent)’.
3Barbara (‘Babe’) Paley (1915–78), American socialite, married to the philanthropist William S. Paley (1901–90), the founder of CBS.
4Rosamond Lehmann (1901–90), British novelist. On an earlier visit to Goldeneye there had been a small altercation when Fleming left a dead squid in her bedroom.
5Cole Lesley (1911–80), Coward’s secretary and later biographer.
6Pearl White (1889–1938), US stage and film actress who specialised in serials.
7Though he would later appoint a UK agent
8To which Fleming had earlier aspired to rise.
9Nicholai Khoklov, a Soviet defector, had recently survived an attempt by Russian agents to assassinate him with thallium – a colourless, odourless, radioactive element known as ‘the poisoner’s poison’
7 Conversations with the Armourer
1Fleming did, in fact, equip a female assassin with a bow and arrow in his 1960 collection of short stories For Your Eyes Only.
2Richard Chopping (1917–2008), famous for his realistic style, would later illustrate numerous Bond jackets
3Fleming’s friend in the police force was Deputy Commissioner Sir Ronald Howe, who featured as Sir Ronald Vallance in Moonraker.
4Boothroyd pointed out that he had in fact been photographed holding a Ruger.
8 Dr No
1Blanche Blackwell (b. 1912), a member of one of Jamaica’s prominent trading families, became a close confidante of Fleming towards the end of his life
2Coward tactfully forbore to stage it. Titled Volcano, the play was finally performed in 2013.
3In his book Fleming described their conversation as being ‘punctuated by what sounded like small-calibre revolver shots.’
4Rima the Jungle Girl, heroine of a novel by W. H. Hudson, Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1904).
5Fleming had included a slightly risqué song in his original manuscript.
6A leaflet advertising The Book Collector.
7Fleming was referring to his celebrity golf tournament, which he described in an article titled ‘Nightmare among the Mighty’.
8William Plomer’s memoir, At Home, was published by Cape in 1958.
9Norman Lewis (1908–2003), journalist, author and travel writer.
10Desmond Flower (1907–97), bibliophile and publisher. As director of Cassell & Co. he had secured a major coup with the acquisition of Winston Churchill’s six-volume history of the Second World War.
11A monthly literary magazine.
12Morris Cargill (1914–2000), lawyer, businessman, politician, writer and, from 1953 until his death, columnist for the Jamaican Gleaner. In 1965 he published a book, Ian Fleming’s Jamaica, with an introduction by Fleming.
13Caspar’s other godparents were Cecil Beaton, Clarissa Eden, Peter Fleming and Ian’s golfing friend Duff Dunbar.
14Cape’s house journal.
15The Avanti had only been introduced in America that April, making it quite likely that Fleming was the first person in Britain to own a model. His customised version, which he owned until his death in 1964, boasted black leather upholstery and crimson-numbered dials on the dashboard. Its numberplate was 8 EYR.
9 Goldfinger
1Sir Gerard D’Erlanger was chairman of BOAC, whose planes served Jamaica.
2They had just moved from White Cliffs to The Old Palace, in Bekesbourne, Kent, which was not as grand as it sounded and where Ann was particularly unhappy.
3Ann’s coterie included several Oxford academics
4Fleming was counting on some funds when his mother died. In the end she predeceased him in 1964 by 16 days, by which time the matter had become irrelevant.
5A live radio interview with Fleming and Raymond Chandler.
6 ‘Quantum of Solace’, a short story Fleming had written on return from the Seychelles was first published by the Sunday Times.
7Sir Ian Gilmour (1926–2007), later a Member of Parliament but from 1954–59 owner and editor of the Spectator magazine for which Fleming was motoring correspondent
8Fleming did indeed use motor racing in an episode for an abortive Bond TV series. His outline was adapted in 2015 by Anthony Horowitz for the novel Trigger Mortis.
10 For Your Eyes Only
1Based on a true story related to Fleming by Blanche Blackwell
2 See ‘Conversations with the Armourer’
3A reference to Whack-O!, a TV series that ran in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and involved a cane-swishing teacher administering corporal punishment to any pupil within reach.
11 The Chandler Letters
1Who owned the freehold to Victoria Square
2Chandler had also sent a near-indecipherable scrawl about Live and Let Die.
12 Thunderball
1The matter did not end there. Court cases continued after Fleming’s death and the dispute was not fully resolved until 2012
2Albert R. Broccoli (1909–96), Harry Saltzman (1915–94).
3‘The Hildeband Rarity’ had appeared in Playboy earlier in the year.
4To which Michael Howard appended the caustic note: ‘both shops? – MH’.
5Marlow replied, ‘A children’s book! Oh, those poor kids – you’ll frighten them to death with James Bond Jr.’
6Marlow had failed to secure Marilyn Monroe for one of her deals.
7Paul Danquah (b. 1925), actor and lawyer, starred in several films during the 1960s and became the first black presenter of a children’s programme on British TV in 1966. Despite Fleming’s intervention he did not get the part.
8Chris Blackwell (b. 1937) had founded Island Records in 1959. Fleming’s intervention was a boost to his career. In short order Blackwell became a major record producer and later introduced Bob Marley to the world.
9Terence Young (1915–94) directed three of the first Bond films.
10David Niven (1910–83), Oscar-winning actor who subsequently appeared as a high-class crook in The Pink Panther (1963) and later starred as James Bond in a 1967 film adaptation of Casino Royale.
11Raymond Hawkey (1930–2010), inspirational designer employed by Pan who was given free rein to produce covers for the entire Bond opus.
12 Fleming had earlier that year relinquished rights to a TV proposal featuring his creation, ‘Napoleon Solo’. The character would later become a mainstay of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series.
13 The Spy Who Loved Me
1His half-sister Amaryllis was by now a highly regarded cellist. When Fleming was at the height of his fame she gleefully recounted how somebody, on being introduced to him at a party, had no idea who he was and wanted to know if he was related to her.
2Fleming had hoped Greene would write an introduction to an American omnibus, Gilt Edged Bonds. Greene demurred at the last moment, by which time Fleming’s publishers had already produced publicity material.
3 Cape’s new marketing director.
4 Courtaulds, one of Britain’s largest textile companies, manufactured a range of synthetic clothing. By means unknown, they managed to use James Bond to promote their products. Fleming was not happy.
5A BBC TV series of probing and often psychologically revealing interviews.
6Where Fleming had been interviewed by Geoffrey Boothroyd.
7Hugo Pitman, an old friend, was connected to the stockbrokers Rowe and Pitman, for whom Fleming had worked in the 1930s.
8Brighton’s shingle beach.
9Rex Stout (1876–1975), prolific American thriller writer, creator of Nero Wolfe.
10A book of ciphers first published in 1909.
11An article by Liebert on Samuel Johnson.
12‘The Guns of James Bond’.
14 The Liebert Letters
1Variously known as Franz or Fritz.
15 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
1This remarkable trophy, considered from the outset as in poor taste, is no longer awarded. But then, to balance the scales, neither is the more worthy Peter Fleming Owl.
2An attempt by the firm Michael Joseph to buy Jonathan Cape had recently failed.
3The square brackets above are Fleming’s own.
4Fleming had written an introduction to one of his favourite novels, Hugh Edwards’ All Night at Mr Stanyhurst’s (1963). Plomer felt his first draft was too pretentious.
5Pietro Annigoni (1910–88), Italian portraitist who had painted Queen Elizabeth in 1956.
6L.G.F. was Plomer’s shorthand for ‘Low Grade Fiction’, a term that he applied to Fleming’s more clichéd expressions.
7 Fleming had described the beaches of Brittany and Picardy as being painted by Manet. Plomer remarked, ‘One doesn’t associate Manet with pictures of these beaches.’ In the final draft it was changed to Monet.
8 Sir William Rothenstein (1892–1945), painter, draughtsman and authoritative writer on art. He had belonged to the bohemian circle that Fleming’s mother attracted in the 1920s.
9A Soviet newspaper that was often critical of Bond.
10Dr No had premiered three days earlier on 5 October 1962.
11E. L. Doctorow (b. 1931–2015), author of Welcome to Hard Times and Ragtime. He worked as an editor at NAL (National American Library) press in the 1960s.
12 Arthur Waley (1889–1966) was a distinguished orientalist whose translations opened classical Chinese and Japanese literature culture to the general reader.
16 You Only Live Twice
1Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), Greek-American author who worked as a teacher in Japan during its emergence from feudal state to modern nationhood.
2In which appeared Cyril Connolly’s lampoon, ‘Bond Strikes Camp’.
3Max Beloff, Fellow of All Souls, whose son Michael was at Magdalen College with Goodwin.
4Fleming’s new publisher at the New American Library (NAL).
5Ann had just bought a picture of a gorilla by Australian artist Sidney Nolan (1917–92).
6Fleming had visited the London Motor Show with Moss in 1956.
7Sonia Orwell (1918–80), widow of George Orwell.
17 The Man With the Golden Gun
1To help tidy up the manuscript, Cape approached Kingsley Amis, who had just submitted an outline for The James Bond Dossier – a slightly tongue-in cheek examination of Bond’s adventures. Amis would later be appointed to write a Bond continuation novel, Colonel Sun, which was published in 1968.
2Fleming had sold a 51 per cent stake in Glidrose, the company that held his literary rights, to his friend Jock Campbell, whose firm Booker Brothers, having acquired other literary estates, became famous as founder of the Booker Prize for fiction.
3Fleming was badly confused. It was actually his fifty-sixth birthday, and he was born in May not March.
4 Ulick O’Connor’s Oliver St. John Gogarty was published by Cape in 1963.
5Denton Welch (1915–48), an intense and troubled writer.
6Francis King and Geoffrey Grigson were eminent writers and critics of the period.
7 Richard Meinertzhagen (1878–1967), officer, spy and adventurer, is said to have been a model for James Bond.
8 Francis Chichester (1901–72), British aviator and sailor who became the first person to sail single-handed around the world.
9 The MS being of Amis’s The James Bond Dossier.
The Works of Ian Fleming
1Containing the short stories ‘From a View to a Kill’, ‘For Your Eyes Only’, ‘Quantum of Solace’, ‘Risico’ and ‘The Hildebrand Rarity’.
2 Containing, in its first incarnation, ‘Octopussy’, ‘The Living Daylights’ and ‘The Property of a Lady’. Later reissued with a fourth short story, ‘007 in New York’.
3 Published in three volumes over the course of several months.