This is an odd book. The editor, who is Ian Fleming’s nephew, admits he has not been able to trace many of the letters quoted by biographers of the creator of James Bond. Fleming’s stepdaughter, Fionn Morgan, has withheld the majority of his correspondence with his wife, Ann; and almost all that to his siblings has been lost. So it is made up mostly of Fleming’s letters to his publisher, dealing with the nitty-gritty of the Bond books: the size of print runs, jacket designs, overuse of the phrase “There was”, publicity blurbs, etc.
An amusing letter to the editor of The Guardian explains why 007 is called James Bond “rather than, say, Peregrine Maltravers [because] I wished him to be unobtrusive... an anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a government department”, but this has often been quoted by biographers.
There are letters to readers thanking them, with great charm, for pointing out errors — about the brakes on the Orient Express, the geography of Moscow, or the weight of Bond’s wristwatch. The correspondence with Geoffrey Boothroyd, who got in touch in 1956 to tell Fleming that Bond was using “a lady’s gun” and needed something more substantial, is fascinating. Fleming not only took his suggestions on board, he also incorporated him as a character, the secret service’s armourer, Major Boothroyd, in his next novel, Dr No. However, all of this is well known, as their correspondence was published as The Guns of James Bond in 1962.
Fleming emerges as a true newspaperman, with an unerring eye for the telling detail, and there are entertaining letters from Noël Coward, but these are familiar from previous biographies. (Coward on Honeychile Rider’s bottom being like a boy’s in Dr No: “I know that we are all becoming progressively more broad-minded nowadays but really old chap, what could you have been thinking of?”)
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Explanatory notes are sometimes bizarrely lacking. One letter ends: “I hear that Douglas is back at the chateau with Richardson.” Could this be referring to the biographer of Picasso and his partner? We are not told.
A book for Bond fanatics only — so it will probably be in the bestseller lists next week.
Bloomsbury £25/ebook £21.99 pp390