Words by Jeffrey Susla, Nichols College It hardly seemed fair that after the ravages of Hurricane Ian, the weekend of 10-11 November 2022, found parts of Florida suffering the wrath of Hurricane Nicole, which closed regional airports and hotels, causing the South Atlantic Modern Language Association organisers, along with the Bond section co-chairs, Dr. Oliver…
Article by Jeffrey Susla, Nichols College For the past six years, James Bond has had a prominent place at the annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference. In November 2021, it was held virtually and the sessions on Bond “Networks” were co-chaired by Oliver Buckton, Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University, and Matthew Sherman,…
By Oliver Buckton Let me begin by saying I never actually met John Pearson in person. The closest I came to a “live” meeting was a phone conversation, somewhere back in 2019, when I called him from my office at Florida Atlantic University. The phone, reaching across the Atlantic to the UK, seemed to ring…
Article by Frieda Toth Looking back, it was ludicrous. I took a motor scooter on a solo trip through the Adirondacks, re-creating the trip of the beautiful and adventurous Bond girl in Ian Fleming’s lesser-known thriller The Spy Who Loved Me. I primitive tented by the river, I befriended a bunch of Harley riders, and…
Article by Jim Wright “The license to kill for the Secret Service, the double-o prefix, was a great honor. It had been earned hardly. It brought Bond the only assignments he enjoyed, the dangerous ones.” — Ian Fleming, Dr. No No Time to Die, the upcoming James Bond movie, marks the…
Article by Dick Woodgate As if in a nod to James Bond the ornithologist, Fleming’s short story, For Your Eyes Only, begins with a detailed description of a Caribbean humming bird before moving on to describe a colonial scene in Fleming’s beloved Jamaica (A little Easter egg here: The Blue Harbor Hotel is mentioned in…
Article by Jeffrey Susla In a 2011 article for The Spectator, Kate Grimond (Ian Fleming’s niece) eloquently writes how Fleming’s only story for children finally appeared in illustrated print. In “The tale of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang” Grimond notes that the young Ian Fleming stayed at Higham Park in Surrey, where he learned stories about how Louis Zborowski’s…
Article by Igor Solarisov “‘Dig that T-bird!’ I had cut it a bit fine round Queen Victoria’s skirts and my wing mirror had almost dashed the Leica from the GI’s hand. If the tourists don’t snap the Queen, at about 10 a.m. on most mornings they can at least get a picture of me and…
An extraordinary collection of Ian Fleming manuscripts, first editions and ephemera go under the hammer at Sotheby’s on October 28th, 2020. The collection is entitled ‘James Bond: A Collection of Books and Manuscripts, The Property of a Gentleman‘ Of particular interest in this archive of treasure, relates to the dust-jacket of For Your Eyes Only, which…
The dust jackets of the first three James Bond novels are well known to any serious first edition collector. Their seminal influence and value are most talked about, but less well known is the man behind the artwork, Kenneth Lewis. Someone who knew the late Lewis well is rare book dealer and long-time Ian Fleming…
Article by Alice Dryden It’s a terrible thing, being a collector. You start off sensibly, with a few well-chosen items, then suddenly find yourself hoarding all kinds of tangentially-related tat. So it was that I walked past the window of one of my local charity shops, spotted a Revell 1:24 scale Bentley 4,5L Blower model…
On April 12, 2020 we lost one of the greatest racing drivers and Britons in Sir Stirling Moss aged 90. In a quite remarkable life in which Moss cheated death a few times, he crossed paths with Ian Fleming and inspired a short story that would find life again in Anthony Horowitz’s novel Trigger Mortis.…
In the dedication for Ian Fleming’s ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ it reads: ‘for SABLE BASILISK PURSUVIANT and HILARY BRAY who came to the aid of the party’ But who is Sable Basilisk? This is in fact, was based on “Rouge Dragon” in the College of Arms. Rouge Dragon was the title of heraldic researcher…
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…
This website just celebrated its 6th anniversary and for the last 4 years we have invited readers and contributors to the site, on an annual celebratory walk and party. This free event, is our way of saying thanks and on the 27th May 2019, Artistic Licence Renewed led it’s 4th Ian Fleming-James Bond Walking Tour of…
One of the rarest pieces of Fleming literature is possibly Ian Fleming’s 128-page scrapbook, in which he wrote down ideas, plot outlines, short sentences and even lengthy excerpts which he considered to feature in future Bond adventures. The scrapbook was never published officially, the known excerpts were jotted down by a reporter of the Daily…
One of the most striking props in any Bond film was the Faberge egg that Roger Moore pursues in the film Octopussy. The Egg seen in the film ‘Octopussy’ is, in fact, a hybrid of the Imperial Coronation Coach Egg, made in 1897. However, the plot idea for the Fabergé auction originates from Ian Fleming’s…
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 Graham M. Thomas Who else could have co-founded Alcoholics Synonymous but Richard Hughes (aka Dikko Henderson), after he had moved from Tokyo to Hong Kong. And when Ian Fleming flew in to the colony (as it was then) in November 1959, it was natural that on his first night in town, his friend…
Artistic Licence Renewed 