IAN FLEMING

A fresh appraisal of the creator of James Bond.

In the introduction, award-winning biographer and novelist Shakespeare recounts how he was approached by the Fleming Estate to write another biography of Ian Fleming (1908-1964) using family materials never before seen that shed “new light that leads to new conclusions about the man.” Indeed, writes the author, “under the jarring surface of his popular image I could see a different person.” Drawing on these materials, diaries, and numerous interviews, Shakespeare neatly weaves the dramatic history of Fleming’s times into a very detailed narrative of his rise to success. Shakespeare is insightful in his explorations of how Fleming’s experiences influenced his books: his Scottish roots; his privileged, loveless upbringing; expensive private boarding school and then Eton, which furnished many characters’ names. After a brief, difficult stay at Sandhurst and a bout of gonorrhea, he was off to Austria and Switzerland, preparing for a possible government job and honing his considerable language and wooing skills. Working for Reuters, he was sent to Stalin’s Soviet Union to cover a high-profile trial of British engineers. After a lucrative banking job—when he got the book-collecting bug and had numerous affairs—he was selected for “intelligence work, the secret war that could save lives.” Six years as the personal assistant to the director of Naval Intelligence, Shakespeare writes, “gave him the secret material that he drew on to write his novels.” He emerged a “complete man,” and “he would spend the rest of his life in peacetime, trying to recapture moments of time like these.” Living in Jamaica, Fleming began Casino Royale: “Ian took the cards he had been dealt and slipped them to Bond.” Later, with some chagrin, a wealthy, unhealthy Fleming said, “I have become the slave of a serial character.”

Shakespeare leaves no stone unturned in this exhaustive, highly readable biography.