1. What is your favourite Chopping cover and why? My favourite Richard Chopping cover is “The Man With The Golden Gun” simply because it’s so large it wraps around the entire book. It was also the first Fleming / Jonathan Cape I purchased and looks great. Special mention has to go to “OHMSS” though simply because of…
Article by Fleming’sBond.com Even a cursory reading of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels reveals that the author enjoyed using brand placement within his work. Many of these reflected the writers own taste in various areas of life, but it also served to ground the series in reality. Readers could go out and in many cases…
Something a little different this week. I chatted with Matt Spaiser who runs the fascinating website dedicated to the sartorial Bond from the films and books. 1. In which book or books do you think Bond is the best dressed? James Bond’s wardrobe is quite consistent throughout all of the books, so there’s no single…
There are literally hundreds of books about Ian Fleming and James Bond, so here at Artistic Licence Renewed, we have made life easier for you and winnowed it down to the pick of the litter. There are of course some great books out there, so please leave a comment at the end of the post…
There is a certain paradox about James Bond’s relationship with all things America. Devoted to the Anglo-American war against Communism, there is a level of contempt that runs through the novels during a time when the British Empire was winding up and the new American one was burgeoning. The contempt tended to be about material…
1. What is your favorite Chopping cover and why? My favourite Chopping cover is probably Octopussy & The Living Daylights. I just like the images and layout. From Russia, With Love is another favourite. I wish Mr Chopping had been commissioned to re-design the rest of the series, and that these designs had been used…
Graham Greene and Ian Fleming are often mentioned in the same breath by espionage fans as two of the most influential of all time. They had many differences in their literature and also shared a personal and slightly fractious relationship. Fleming’s admiration for Greene was there from the beginning, having feasted on novels such as…
If you are interested in investing in James Bond first editions and Fleming paraphnalia, you’ll need to have deeper pockets than Auric Goldfinger. Here are some of the most expensive items to have ever sold at auction. Special thanks to Simon Patterson at Hyraxia Books for his invaluable help. $102,000 Moonraker, signed from Fleming to…
1. What is your favorite Chopping cover and why? I find book design so fascinating because there are so many doors into a story. Goldfinger and Thunderball tie as my favorite Chopping cover for Ian Fleming. I love how the skeleton motif implies a thrilling experience without actually defining any specific characters or scenes. It’s…
Article by Benjamin Welton. Straddling the ancient Bosphorus, Istanbul (alias Constantinople and alias Byzantium) has always been more of an idea and an ideal than a city. Istanbul is where the Orient and the Occident meet. It has been home to Greek traders, Roman emperors, Byzantine bureaucrats, and Turkish sultans. Istanbul, in the words of…
Casino Royale stands out as among the best of all the Bond novels and often assumed that it created the narrative template for the series. It certainly laid the ground and introduced Bond to the world but it can be argued that it does not conform to the familar conventions that Ian Fleming developed over…
Broken Antler were asked by Brewery VFX to help develop the titles for the 4 part Sky Atlantic series ‘Fleming’. This is the process they went through, different versions and the different ideas they tried. Sky Atlantic ‘Fleming – The Man Who Would Be Bond’ Title Design Development. from Broken Antler on Vimeo. They developed…
Article by Benjamin Welton The espionage novel is one part “imperial adventure story” and one part detective tale. The former, which is extensively examined by Dr. Caroline Reitz in her slim study entitled Detecting the Nation: Fictions of Detection and the Imperial Venture, often details the exploits of Englishmen abroad, specifically those educated Englishmen who…
Philip Larkin, the greatest English poet of the second half of the past century (and a genuine Bond fan), reviewed Licence Renewed in the June 05, 1981 issue of The Times Literary Supplement. His review is really about Fleming’s legacy, and he makes the case–with more eloquence and insight than anyone since–for why Bond-continuation novels…
1. What is your favorite Chopping cover and why? I think it would have to be Thunderball. The skeletal hand over the cards and pierced through with the dagger is perhaps the most eye-catching of the covers, in my opinion. I enjoy From Russia With Love as well, the cover is outstanding, the simplicity of…
Article by Revelator Doctor No is definitely one of the better Fleming novels. The novel is divisive only because it caused an idiot at the New Statesman named Paul Johnson to write an article accusing Fleming of “sex, snobbery, and sadism,” a phrase still used by lazy journalists. Johnson went on to attack The Beatles with equal viciousness…
Shortly after handing over an early manuscript of Moonraker to William Plomer, Ian Fleming told him: “In my opinion, it isn’t much of a book, but it should make a good film.” How wrong he was to be as it turned out. A film version never materialized in his lifetime and when it did, it…
Article by Edward Biddulph During his career as the author of the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming received hundreds of letters from his readers. Readers wrote to express their admiration for the latest novel or to point out errors or an incorrect reference to some luxury product. Some readers simply wrote to ask for Fleming’s…
In September 1965, Kingsley was offered the opportunity to write his own Bond story after the success of both his literary critique The James Bond Dossier and tongue-in-cheek The Book Of Bond (Or Every Man His Own 007). Shortly afterwards, in 1966, official Bond publisher Glidrose Productions Ltd. commissioned novelist Geoffrey Jenkins to also write a Bond novel. Set in South…
Article by Revelator: Philip Larkin is perhaps was the first critic to connect Major Smythe to Fleming, and at first glance, Smythe’s similarities to Fleming are many and obvious. Both are in their mid-50s and dealing with a sagging belly, heart trouble, and a soured marriage. Either could be described as “the remains of a…
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