Ian Fleming

When Ian Fleming died in August 1964 there remained an unpublished manuscript, which was examined and thought to be exceptionally weak. Before he died, Fleming had raised concerns about the quality of what he had written. The manuscript was edited by Kingsley Amis before being published as The Man With The Golden Gun. Amis’ theory [...]

Best read after Thunderball and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the reader finds Bond with a personal score to settle with Blofeld after being married and widowed on the same day. Bond finds himself in Japan and encounters a Ninja training camp, and Japanese pearl divers while on the trail of Blofeld. Following Thunderball, the [...]

Following the original publication of the book, Fleming ordered that it not be released as a paperback. On first reading it is disappointing, as Fleming takes the radical approach of writing the book from the perspective of the heroine of the book. Bond does not appear until the end of the book and it is [...]

Fleming had been working with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham on a film project, and when it fell through Fleming turned the material he had into Thunderball. Once published he found himself in court and subsequently lost the case in favour of McClory and Whittington. The result of the case is that all copies of [...]

For Your Eyes Only marked Fleming’s first deviation from the traditional Bond formula, with a series of five short stories. Prior to the book, Fleming had been involved in a project to bring Bond to the small screen and it is possible that this is the origin of some of the stories. Of the five [...]

Auric Goldfinger is a man who loves gold so much that he only makes love to women painted in gold, drives a gold Rolls Royce and hatches a scheme to rob America’s gold reserves at Fort Knox in order to corner the world bullion market. James Bond is sent on his tail, first encountering him [...]

At the beginning of Dr No we find Bond being chastised by M for having nearly being killed at the end of From Russia, With Love. His solution is to re-equip Bond with more a more suitable weapon to the Beretta he had been using until now and then sends him on a “holiday” assignment [...]

It has been remarked that From Russia, With Love is Fleming’s most traditional novel, and it has been suggested that this is the reason for the success of the film, which is faithful to its source. Bond does not appear at the beginning of the book while the reader is taken through the machinations of [...]

After the success of the first three books, Diamonds Are Forever moves away from Russia as an enemy to a story centring on Bond’s attempt to infiltrate a diamond smuggling racket run by “The Spangled Mob”. Bond acts as a courier, smuggling a set of diamonds inside golf balls. This was a device that Fleming [...]

Casino Royale is Ian Fleming’s first novel and introduces the character of James Bond and his tastes and vices in a style of vivid writing that led to the accusation of “sex, sadism and snobbery”. It introduces us to many of the concepts that are to feature in the later books and in the films, [...]