This week’s hapless castaway is ALR favourite Edward Biddulph who might be able to survive with plenty of coffee while working on his golf game! 001. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service OHMSS is the first James Bond novel I read. It was my grandparents’ copy of the Book Club edition, and I was 11 or…
Ian Fleming was rarely photographed without a cigarette in his hand, but more iconic was the cigarette holder he used. He had several of them, which were all by Asprey. We are delighted to reveal one of Fleming’s original Asprey cigarette holder that was originally owned by Lord Woodrow Wyatt (father of Petronella Wyatt) as he and Ian…
Article by Claire Hines Last year the news of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s death at the age of 91 caused some Bond fans to recall the connection between James Bond and Playboy – it’s a connection that my recently published book The playboy and James Bond analyses in the context of broader issues of culture…
Article by David Salter and Jonathan Cull. For Bond devotees of London’s clubland, it is of some interest to watch Blade’s, M’s club, gradually turn, as the books progress, from a 20th century version of its sybaritic predecessor, the Scavoir Vivre*, into straightforward Boodle’s. Fleming usually lunched at Boodle’s and was devoted to it. He stated that a…
By Wesley Britton. Re-published with additional material by Matt Sherman. It all began with Ian Lancaster Fleming’s richly descriptive James Bond novels. During the 1950s, when the first seven 007 books appeared, Bond was a globetrotting tourist with many travel scenes at a time when thrillers were designed for an international market. Descriptions of gentlemen’s…
Bond scholars rejoice! The International Journal of James Bond Studies, is the first of its kind to focus on one of British literature’s most famous characters. This week we find out more from its editor, Dr Ian Kinane. 001. Can you tell us about how the International Journal of James Bond Studies came into being? The journal…
This week, we hear from spy thriller writer Graeme Shimmin, on the influence of Bond on his book, A Kill in the Morning… ‘My dad had a whole collection of the 1960s paperback versions of the James Bond novels. I was something of a precocious reader and when I was about seven (definitely not more than…
Article by Jonathan Hopson “About three years ago, P. H. Muir of Elkin Mathews had a customer (I believe an Englishman) to whom he could sell practically any book (mainly XVIIIth and XIXth century) which was the first about any discovery or social innovation”. So wrote Graham Pollard, bookseller and bibliographer. He was also a…
“Have no fear,” Fleming advises reporter Antony Terry in 1955, “you are by far the best correspondent in Germany and all you have to do is to write what you think and not be afraid of it” (Lenart, Judith, comp. Yours Ever Ian Fleming: Letters to and from Antony Terry. Nelson, New Zealand: Printhouse Nelson…
Article by David Salter In “From a View to a Kill” the first short story in Ian Fleming’s collection “For Your Eyes Only” (1960) the reader gets a comprehensive but compressed description of James Bond’s Paris. Bond is sitting on the terrace of Fouquet’s in the Champs Elysees, drinking an Americano, one of the ‘musical…
This week see’s the launch of a new podcast that might interest a lot of James Bond fans. FROM TAILORS WITH LOVE is a new fashion based podcast then centres around the lifestyle of James Bond, chronicling the suits and brands from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig. FROM TAILORS WITH LOVE is a fortnightly podcast…
Ian Fleming’s literary debut of British Secret Service agent 007 is stylishly adapted to the sequential art medium by Van Jensen and Denis Calero in the official James Bond: Casino Royale graphic novel. Sent to a French casino in Royale-les-Eaux, Bond aims to eliminate the threat of the deadly Le Chiffre by bankrupting the ruthless…
