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Ian Lancaster Fleming (May 28, 1908August 12, 1964) is the British author, best remembered for writing the James Bond series of novels.
Biography
Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in Mayfair, London, England, to Valentine Fleming and Evelyn St. Croix Fleming, and was a younger brother of travel writer, Peter Fleming. He was educated at Eton College and Sandhurst military academy, then studied languages on the Continent, first at Kitzbühel, Austria, then at Munich University, Bavaria, Germany; afterwards working, first as a journalist for the Reuters new service, and later as a stockbroker with Rowe and Pitman, in Bishopsgate. In 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, Rear-Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy , recruited Fleming as personal assistant, first as Lieutenant, then as Commander.
While in Naval Intelligence, Fleming conceived, and was author of, Operation Ruthless, a plan—left unexecutedfor capturing the German naval version of the Wehrmact's Enigma communications encoder, c.f. Enigma material. Anthony Masters's book The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight (ISBN 0-631-13392-5), asserts Fleming conceived the plan successfuly luring Nazi Party Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, into flying to Scotlandin May 1941, to negotiate AngloGerman peace with Churchilland consequent captivity; this claim has no other source.
As the DNI's personal assistant, Fleming's intelligence work was the background and experience for writing spy novels. The first James Bond story, "The Hildebrand Rarity", was published in Playboy magazine in 1951. Then followed the novel Casino Royale, published in 1953it is believed the woman character, Vesper Lynd, is real-life, WWII SOE agent, Christine Granville, likewise, various inspirations for James Bond, the protagonist, have been suggested. Besides writing the twelve novels and nine short stories featuring James Bond, secret agent 007, Ian Fleming also is known for writing the children's novel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
With the realisation of the James Bond film series, in 1962, Fleming suggested his cousin, actor Christopher Lee, to play Doctor No, the villain of the first film; sources say Lee also was considered for the James Bond role. Later, in 1974, Lee was the eponymous villain of the film The Man with the Golden Gun.
In 1964, Ian Fleming died of a heart attack, in Canterbury, Kent, at age 56, and is interred in the Church yard cemetery in the village of Sevenhampton, near Swindon, next to his wife Ann Geraldine Mary Fleming (19131981) and their only son, Caspar Robert Fleming (19521975).
In the mid-nineties, Pierce Brosnan, the fifth, official James Bond actor, bought the gold-plated typewriter on which Ian Fleming wrote some of his James Bond novels, in Jamaica.
Selected works
James Bond novels
The 1960 short story collection, For Your Eyes Only, is five stories: (i) "From A View to a Kill," (ii) "For Your Eyes Only," (iii) "Risico," (iv) "Quantum of Solace", and (v) "The Hildebrand Rarity."
The 1966 story collection, Octopussy and the Living Daylights, initially was only two short stories: (i) "Octopussy" and (ii) "The Living Daylights". The 1967 paperback edition's title was shortened to Octopussy, while a third story, "Property of a Lady", lengthened its content to trilogy. In the 1990s, the collection's longer, original title was restored, and with the 2002 edition, the story, "007 in New York", lengthened it to tetralogy.
Children's story
Non-fiction
External links
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