Ian Fleming Publications Ltd., The Ian Fleming Estate, the Orion Publishing Group, and HarperCollins US and Canada are delighted to announce that international bestselling and award-winning writer Anthony Horowitz is at work on an official new James Bond novel. Currently dubbed Project One, the novel is due for worldwide release on 8th September 2015. The…
We are delighted to welcome renowned Random House Creative Director Suzanne Dean, whose work has adorned Random House’s recent Vintage Classics Ian Fleming series and William Boyd’s James Bond continuation novel – Solo. 1. How did the Vintage Classics re-issues come about and how did you decide the direction for the artwork? Our deadline was…
This week we welcome Professor James Chapman in from the cold. James is known for many things not least his work on British popular culture and cinema and television in their historical contexts. He is interested in the role of the media as propaganda, the representation of war and history, and the cultural politics of popular fictions.…
Words by Benjamin Welton On Halloween of last year, Gérard de Villiers died at the age of 83. A lifelong Parisian, de Villiers was at the time eulogized for being one of the Francophone world’s most beloved spy fiction writers and the one popular novelist that French intellectuals actually read (although few would ever fess…
We are delighted to get the chance to put some questions to legendary book jacket artist, Bill Botten. Bill’s work has adorned hundred’s of famous author’s novels including Kingsley and Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, William Plomer, Salman Rushdie, Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Crichton and J.G. Ballard. For James Bond fans, Bill’s work is most recognizable from…
The stellar cast that narrated all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books is finally being released in the United States on MP3 by Blackstone Audio. In 2012 Ian Fleming’s Bond novels were released as brand new 007 Reloaded audiobooks by AudioGo, but the company disbanded. The original CD versions are now out of print and scarce, so…
The common perception of a Bond girls, as damsels in distress waiting for our hero James Bond to save from the clutches of the villain and also themselves, is not without its flaws. In a recent interview I did with Robert Caplen, author of Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond, when asked this same question he…
Sold at Christies in 2011 for 500 pounds ($799), this is a beautiful example of Chopping’s Trompe l’oeil style. Not much is known about this painting unfortunately, but perhaps more information will come to light. Several Chopping motifs are present however, including the wood background and the natural world. Botanists out there might be able…
Article by Revelator After For Your Eyes Only Bond was no longer a wonderful machine. Nor was he a fully-dimensional, complex human being—that would involve surrendering his role as a male-fantasy projection—but he was considerably more human than before. Why? Because Ian Fleming failed. He explained why in an interview with Counterpoint: Now, you’ll notice that…
Words by Edward Biddulph Ian Fleming described him as “one of the great secret agents of the last war”, and a man that “has a magnetic personality and the quality of making anyone ready to follow him to the ends of the earth.” No, not James Bond, but Sir William Stephenson, who in 1940 on…
Writer Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, provided an unlikely footnote to Bond lore. In 1975, he was commissioned by Albert R Broccoli to write a screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. Fleming’s original novel was considered unsuitable for adaptation but the title was retained with the aim of building a new story around it. Broccoli and…
(Source: The Times, Aug 13, 1964) Mr. Ian Fleming, whose death at the age of 56 is announced on another page was one of the most successful and controversial thriller writers in recent years. Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in 1903, son of Major Valentine Fleming, M.P., D.S.O. He was educated at Eton and Sandhurst.…
In the 1930s, Ian Lancaster Fleming worked in the City of London before he became a wartime spy, then worked in Fleet Street until it started to rain money from his fantasy spy James Bond books and movies. To acknowledge and re-discover the City connections of Ian Fleming, Maxus Walks runs a set of two…
We are delighted to bring Nigel West in from cold and ask him a few questions about his Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s World of Intelligence. This book, published in 2009, is a chronology of hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on actual cases of espionage, real-life spies, MI5, SIS, CIA, KGB, and more. It also contains entries…
On Monday, August 5 1963, Roy Plomley’s castaway was writer Ian Fleming. The clip – not the full broadcast – is the only extract the BBC have, but it is crystal clear and one of the best audio recordings of Fleming’s voice and thoughts on topics ranging from intelligence work during the war, his stint at The…
Article by Revelator After the narrative slack of Diamonds Are Forever, Fleming decided to better himself with From Russia with Love. Because its story was entirely structured around a deathtrap for one man, it was important for that man to be human enough to hold the audience’s empathy. This demanded a more rounded Bond, and…
No doll’s house is complete without a set of 1st edition James Bond novels! These are handcrafted 1/12th scale complete set of miniature replicas of all fourteen of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. Each miniature measures a mere 9/16″ x 13/16″ x 1/8″ in size and reproduce the dustjacket cover art of all the original Jonathan…
The life of James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, has been celebrated in a set of stamps and limited edition items to be released by Guernsey Post, to celebrate 50 years following his death on August 12, 1964. The stamps will be issued on 30 July. Dawn Gallienne, head of philatelic at Guernsey Post, said: “Our commemorative…
Words by Revelator Here is part 1 of 3 that we’re calling “the three ages of Bond.” Thanks to Daniel Craig (and his underrated predecessor Timothy Dalton) we’ve heard a lot of the phrase “Fleming’s Bond,” as in “Craig comes closest to Fleming’s Bond, the ruthless government assassin” and so on. This phrase has always rang…
Words by Benjamin Welton Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? From the pseudo-science of ancient astronauts to Alex Jones’s favorite hobby horse the Illuminati, conspiracy theories surround us, especially within the cold confines of the internet. Just last year, Jesse Walker, an editor at the libertarian Reason magazine, released The United States of Paranoia:…
Artistic Licence Renewed 