Ian Fleming…The Creator of James Bond

“My name is Bond…… James Bond”. Moviegoers heard these words for the first time in the 1962 film “Dr. No” but not the last. We have been hearing it for close to six decades now as it is the longest ever film franchise in the world. The 27th movie of this franchise is ready for release and the next one is already being planned.

Ian Fleming’s 1957 secret agent novel was his sixth out of the 11 he wrote. The Eron-educated former Intelligence officer and journalist said he wrote his first, Casino Royale , to alleviate the shock of getting married at the age of 44.His hero James Bond, code numbered 007(licensed to kill) was named after an ornithologist, whose book ‘Birds Of The West Indies’ was one of Fleming’s favourites. Bond is always sent by his boss M, the chief of British secret service Ml6 to do battle with KGB or SMERSH and defeat meglaniacal villains like Dr No or Auric Goldfinger.
Ian Lancaster Fleming was born into a very rich family that owned the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. His father was a Member of Parliament from Henley from 1910 till 1917 when he died on the Western Front, fighting in the First World War.

Ian attended a preparatory school Dunford in 1914 on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset but did not enjoy his time there. Later, he got his education at Eton and Sandhurst. He also briefly attended the universities of Munich and Geneva.
Ian joined the British Navy’s Intelligence Division during the, Second World War and was involved in many important covert missions including the planning of Operation Goldeneye, which he also used as a title of one of his novels, later. He also planned and oversaw two intelligence units,30 Assault Unit and T-Force. It was his work as an intelligent officer that provided him the vision and background for developing the character of a spy in his James Bond novels and the character got so much of depth and details.

While involved in the war, Fleming used to tell his friends that he was interested in writing a spy novel. He started writing his first novel Casino Royale on 17 February 1952 and finished it in two months. He gained the inspiration from his own experience and also used his imagination because after the war he had started working as a journalist. He later said that he started writing this novel to distract himself from the forthcoming wedding to the pregnant Charteris. Initially he wanted to depict his protagonist Bond to be an extremely dull ,uninterestyman to whom things happened and would be a blunt instrument.

But when he wrote the novel, he developed James Bond as a flamboyant, daredevil officer of MI6,who is also a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve.

Ian’s manuscript was typed by his red haired secretary at The Times. The character of Miss Moneypenny, the secretary of the MI6 chief M was based on her.

A copy of the novel was sent to the publishing house Jonathan Cape who did not show any interest in publishing it. Since Ian’s brother Peter’s books were being published by them, he persuaded them to publish it and on 13 April 1953 Casino Royale was released in the UK in hardcover. It was an instant success and had to be reprinted thrice. It was followed by 10 more novels and two short story collections. an Fleming received a further boost in 1960 when the American President John F Kennedy named ‘From Russia With Love’ as one of his 10 most favourite novels.

Courtesy : Mr. N Bohra