Article by Graham Thomas John Betjeman (1906 -1984) was Poet Laureate, a lover of English churches but was not a spy and, so far as is known, did not come across Fleming during the War. (Unlike other literary figures.) Eventually, he and Fleming did become good friends and while there is now little in the…
[Abridged review by Monica Germana for The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007, by Jeremy Black (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 280) in the International Journal of James Bond Studies, DOI: http://doi.org/10.24877/jbs.34%5D The world has been shaken and stirred, if the pun can be excused, by a number of excellent academic…
Nobody Does It Better than the Folio Society… For this edition, The Folio Society has also reintroduced Ian Fleming’s original prologue, which had been removed from all modern editions of the text. In an unusual move by the author, this short introduction suggests that the manuscript had been left on his desk by Vivienne Michel,…
It can be argued that Sefton Delmer is the Godfather of what we commonly refer to as ‘fake news’. In old money, this was propaganda. Delmer’s “Black Propaganda,” was a disinformation war waged over the airwaves and mixed real news culled from intelligence sources and fake items. He even he produced a German-language newspaper called…
Article by F. L. Toth Ian Fleming was often criticized, sometimes rightly, for getting the facts wrong about the things for which he is best known, such as fine food, guns, wine, and bath products of all things. He seems, in fact, to have been the most annoying of dilettantes: the man who learns just…
From the first publication of Fleming’s James Bond novels in the 1950s, up to the troubled and controversial production of No Time To Die – the 25th Bond film–the persona and milieu of Bond has attracted scandal. Lambasted in 1958 by Paul Johnson for “sex, snobbery, and sadism” Fleming’s novels attracted still more notoriety when…
Article by Igor Solarisov If diamonds are forever; then so are sapphires. Armstrong Siddeley Sapphires, that is. If looked after, they last a long time. Such as this 1954 six-window saloon once owned by the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming. In the spirit of its original owner’s fiction, I have agreed not to reveal…
In this new book by Mark Edlitz, The Many Lives of James Bond offers the largest ever collection of original interviews with actors who have played Bond in different media, as well as in-depth interviews with many of the diverse artists who have contributed their talents to the making of James Bond movies, television shows,…
Gerald Wadsworth returns in… On Her Majesty’s Secret Service! The Inspirations Inspiration for a painting can come from one of those inexplicable and unexpected parts of Fleming’s writing. Normally, we race through a story, relishing the action and adventure, the seduction and rejections, the wealth of detail surrounding our favorite spy, and invariably, we find…
When You Were Young and Your Heart Was an Open Book…. Ian Fleming’s spy takes on flesh-eating sharks and a diabolical criminal mastermind in Live and Let Die, the eighth volume in Folio’s James Bond collection. This adventure plunges MI6’s best into a desperate fight for survival against the unearthly Mr Big, and not everyone…
Noel Coward was one of the 20th Century’s greatest artist’s in every sense of the word. He was also one of Ian Fleming’s closest friends and each played an important role in each other’s lives. While outwardly different in many ways, they shared much in common and such as a love of Empire, music, art,…
This month we are delighted to talk to the San Francisco based artist Michael Gillette, who created a beautiful set of officially licensed James Bond book covers for the Ian Fleming Centenary in 2008, that was published by Penguin Books. 1. What is your favourite Chopping cover and why? I really enjoy them all, Chopping…
