Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming (1908–1964) was a British author, journalist and former naval intelligence officer best known as the creator of James Bond. Born into a wealthy and politically connected family, he was educated at Eton and Sandhurst before working in banking, stockbroking and journalism. During the Second World War he served as assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear-Admiral John Godfrey, and was involved in planning intelligence operations and liaison work. These experiences supplied Fleming with much of the atmosphere, terminology and professional detail that later shaped his spy fiction. After the war he became foreign manager of The Sunday Times and spent part of each year at GoldenEye, his house in Jamaica, where he wrote the Bond novels. His books made him one of the most commercially successful British writers of the post-war period.

Fleming introduced James Bond in Casino Royale in 1953 and followed it with Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia with Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun. He also published the short-story collections For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights. The novels combine espionage, international travel, gambling, organised crime, Cold War rivalry and larger-than-life villains, while drawing on Fleming’s own knowledge of intelligence work and luxury society. Outside the Bond series, he wrote the children’s adventure Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and nonfiction including The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities. Although the Bond books are now strongly associated with the history and culture of the 1950s and early 1960s, they were contemporary thrillers when Fleming wrote them rather than historical novels.