Fleming was a shrewd and perceptive chronicler of a Cold War world much more dangerous than ordinary citizens understood it to be. The James Bond books have had their ups and downs.
Fleming’s 007 prototype has proven, indestructible, surviving through 23 films and also 24 additional novels written by six successive authors (not including the movie novelisations). In 1953, Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale introduced one of the most popular literary characters ever: the secret agent with the blue eyes, black hair and “cruel mouth”, the persistent appetites (for women, food and that special “shaken, not stirred” martini) and the immortal line “Bond, James Bond”.īy the time Fleming, a former journalist and naval intelligence officer, died on 12 August 1964 at the age of 56, he had written 14 James Bond books and established the basis for his estate to manage the franchise.
