The Author

‘I have always smoked and drank and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much.’ Ian Fleming

The Fleming Files

Name: Fleming, Ian Lancaster

Born: 28 May 1908 Place: London

Status: deceased, 1964, age 56

Education: Eton; Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (failed to complete); studied languages in Austria, Germany, France

A notable athlete…

Early career: sub-editor and journalist with Reuters (including Moscow); short-lived city career interrupted by war

War years: assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence; Lt then commander (codename 17F). This covert work provides inspiration and background for the Bond novels…

Bond years: First novel Casino Royale (1953). As foreign manager for Sunday Times, Fleming spends each winter at Goldeneye in Jamaica to write. Produces one novel a year for the next 12 years:

Live and Let Die (1954); Moonraker (1955); Diamonds Are Forever (1956); From Russia with Love (1957); Dr No (1958); Goldfinger (1959); For Your Eyes Only (1960); Thunderball (1961); The Spy Who Loved Me (1962); On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963); You Only Live Twice (1964); The Man with the Golden Gun (1965); Octopussy/The Living Daylights (1966)

Vices: cars, good food, gambling and girls…

Legacy:

14 James Bond books

Two non-fiction books: Thrilling Cities (a travel guide) and a study of international crime The Diamond Smugglers

100 million copies sold worldwide

Bond bites: Dame Celia Johnson, star of the David Lean classic film, Brief Encounter, was Ian Fleming’s sister-in-law