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…
[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…
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…
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 Andrew William’s 2009 novel The Interrogator, which was shortlisted for CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger that year, Ian Fleming appears as a character in the book, in his role as Special Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral Godfrey. Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay is among just a handful of men rescued when his ship,…
Article by Matt Sherman Dear ALR readers, Mr. Fleming gave us the best possible travelogues, didn’t he? His exciting real-world details filled the spaces between the action scenes, making his Bond and other stories eminently readable. “That’s how it’s done,” to quote Bond author and expert John Cork. I’ve been reading Bond since age 9,…
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…
In the wake of the announcement of Bond 25 at Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye retreat where the 007 books were written, it seems appropriate to revisit the road to Bond 25 and the roots of Fleming’s writing which remain in the films. This history is contained in the paperback of Matthew Field’s and Ajay Chowdhury’s “Some…
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…
Edinburgh Spy Week is in its sixth year of celebrating spy fiction, film and history. This year a Bond theme runs throughout the week (5th to 12th April), so three of the Spy Week team, Simon Cooke, Penny Fielding and David Sorfa, sat down to talk about Casino Royale. 001. Casino Royale was a new kind…
To celebrate the anniversary of the publication of You Only Live Twice, we take a closer look at Fleming, Bond and Sean Connery’s experiences in Tokyo. Article by Graham Thomas Fleming came to Tokyo in 1959 and 1962, Bond arrived in 1963 or maybe early 1964, and Connery in 1966. In the early 1960s about…
Luxury holiday provider eShores have developed a new James Bond holiday package, touring locations used in the filming of Casino Royale, which the company was inspired to create the package by requests from customers. Gavin Lapidus, co-founder of eShores, said about the new package: “We’re always looking for great new ways to engage our customers…
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…
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…
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…
Article by Graham M. Thomas It was 1999 when I last visited the island of Kyushu in southwest Japan. Literary007 was then just but a faint twinkle in an eye. Now in 2017, I decided to make a return visit in an attempt to retrace Fleming’s and Bond’s own journeys across the island. Within the…
Mercifully, literary Bond fans did not have to wait forever and a day for Mr. Horowtiz’s second James Bond continuation novel since 2015’s TRIGGER MORTIS. In fact, rather than a continuation, his new effort is a prequel to CASINO ROYALE that provides him with a clean canvas to work with. The opening chapter starts off…
Artistic Licence Renewed 