TO JOHN CARTER, ESQ., C.B.E., 16 Bedford Gardens, London, W.8.
Having bought The Book Collector outright from Lord Kemsley the previous year, Fleming soon found himself at odds with the more pernickety members of the editorial board. On 19 November he had received a tart note from John Carter about a proposed advertising campaign – ‘We ivory-tower dwellers (as I realise we are assumed to be) are sometimes puzzled by the ways of business men. Frankly, I’m puzzled now. Pray (as W.S.C. [Winston Churchill] used to minute) enlighten me on half a sheet of paper.’ Fleming’s reply went to a page and a half.
20th November, 1956
Many thanks for your splendidly acidulated letter, but was it really necessary to be quite so crushing?
None of us are “businessmen” and we all have to rely on the bits of each other’s time and talents that are made available – John [Hayward] doing all the editorial work, Percy [Muir] writing a serial for us, me looking after the business side and Robert [Harling] lending a hand on lay-outs and promotion.
Eleven months ago, as you mention, we were all most grateful for your American promotion ideas and agreed with them. A leaflet was produced and it needed a guiding hand to get it run off and sent across the Atlantic into the right hands.
I believe John did ask if you would be willing to mother this little child of yours, but got the answer that you hadn’t the necessary secretarial help. I offered to provide this, but the offer was not taken up.
Then you went to America, and the original impetus was lost.
As you saw last Tuesday, we were all chagrined that this American promotion scheme, in its two parts – to booksellers, and to the possible new subscribers, such as Friends of the Morgan Library, which were mentioned – has not got under way.
Bending us over your knee, though possibly justified, is not the answer.
The position at the moment is that Robert has undertaken to re-make-up the text, John has agreed to marry up a list of possible subscribers with you and James Shand [the printer] has agreed to help choose an illustration and get the thing run off.
All that is needed is a keen Man of Affairs with an intimate knowledge of the market we are trying to penetrate. Could that man possibly be you? And would you be very kind and take the fragments of this problem and co-ordinate them with that gift for symmetry we all admire in you.
We would all be deeply grateful if you would do this.
The alternative, I am sure, would be five still more hang-dog faces at our next luncheon.
To which Carter replied with further sharp comments: ‘In short, my dear Ian, your manful attempt to saddle me with the responsibility for first delaying, then smothering, and finally jettisoning my own promotion scheme does more credit to your ingenuity than to your memory.’ Fleming just couldn’t be bothered with this nonsense.
29th November, 1956
You really must not waste any more of your valuable time writing me abrasive letters about the promotional leaflet for The Book Collector.
One telephone call to Robert – God forbid that you should have made it – confirms that the leaflet is on its way to James Shand to be proofed. James will choose a couple of illustrations (Robert suggests the dirtiest and I agree) and the final proof will shortly reach you and John Hayward for approval. Any further circulation seems unnecessary.
A mailing list will be, or could be, immediately co-ordinated by you and John, and off the leaflet will go.
Robert agrees with alacrity to accept full responsibility for the delay and, if it will add to your satisfaction, I will accept full over-riding responsibility for Robert’s irresponsibility.
And now let’s get our feet back on the ground and our noses back to our many and more pressing grindstones.
TO MICHAEL HOWARD
One of the grindstones to which Fleming referred in his letter to Carter (above) was the prospect of writing a new book.
27th November, 1956
Dear Michael,
I shall be very interested to hear if sales go up but I doubt if there will be any effect, except to increase the rentable value of my property!
I’m afraid I certainly shan’t be able to clean up another book by April and I shall be very relieved if I am able to write one at all, as the fountain of my genius is running pretty dry.
On the other hand, Al Hart writes as follows:
“You have surpassed yourself! The new one is far and away your best, from the very first page right through to that altogether admirable cliff-hanger of an ending. Pearl White6 was never more effective.
“Seriously, I mean it: ‘From Russia with Love’ is a real wowser, a lulu, a dilly and a smasheroo. It is also a clever and above all sustained piece of legitimate craftsmanship. My chapeau is not only off to you, it is over the windmill.”
This may cheer you up.
Moreover, your Mr. Williams seemed quite honestly to put it his number three favourite.
I think if you put aside your misgivings and decide it is going to be a smashing success, it will be, and I sincerely hope you aren’t thinking of reducing your print below 15. I am sure, irrespective of the book’s merits, that would be a mistake.
Howard, however, was not letting his author off the hook. As Fleming wrote on 12 December, presumably in reply to a dispiriting note about trade opinion, ‘What are you trying to do, break my nerve? If you can find some obscure bookseller who is prepared to say a kind word about the book, I shall be delighted to have it. [Hatchards] tell me that your chief traveller likes it very much. If so, this welcome piece of information has been withheld from me!’
TO WREN HOWARD
Fleming had written on 28 December 1956 to clarify the terms of a serialisation in the Daily Express, to thank Daniel George fulsomely for his comments – ‘I think the book has been greatly improved as a result’ – and to assure Howard that he had no intention of changing publisher. But he cast a warning note: ‘Incidentally, when you talk airily of future books, I do beg you to believe that the vein of my inventiveness is running extremely dry and I seriously doubt if I shall be able to complete a book in Jamaica this year. There are many reasons for this, which I need not go into, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to work up enthusiasm for Bond and his unlikely adventures.’
2nd January, 1957
Dear Bob,
And a very happy New Year to you.
I was greatly heartened by your letter and by your judgement on the new book. Personally I agree with you and I think it has been still further improved by re-writing. I am quite certain that you will sell 20,000 copies if only because, thanks to World Books and Express serialisation, etc., my name is much better known.
I think some people will find it tough but then Russians are very tough people and I wanted to make them so. I think the plot is a good one and there’s no harm in letting Bond make a fool of himself for a change.
I am also encouraged by your last paragraph and certainly intend to keep Bond spinning through his paces as long as possible. The trouble is that I take great pains with the factual background to these stories and my source material is running rather dry. It is also very difficult to find new ways of killing and chasing people and new shapes and names for the heroines. However these are my problems and I will try and cope with them, though perhaps not with the same monotonous regularity as I have achieved so far.
Thank you for being so understanding about the royalty position. I can assure you that I am very happy with Jonathan Cape and I have no desire at all that the partnership should be an unbalanced one. It is mostly for that reason that I have eschewed agents7 and left subsidiary rights to you.
Many thanks for the contracts and I am returning your copy which you seem to have sent me inadvertently.
I now depart, weighed down by my secretary with about two hundred pages of blank foolscap and a new typewriter ribbon!
TO ‘IAN FLEMING “ESQ” and/or his secretary’ from an unknown ill-wisher
14th February, 1957
> Somebody once said of Albert Schweitzer words to the effect that, in our poor world, there (meaning A.S.) went a truly great man. A man who has added something to the sum of love, dignity and beauty among us.
Having read a few pages of your revolting (and boring) writing, I see you as the exact antithesis of – for instance – a man like Schweitzer. You are doing your bit to make the world a beastlier place.
May I add this appeal to any others you may be receiving, and ask you, for the sake of anything decent and lovely you can think of, to stop.
I must also add that, if I myself ever had the chance (and if a much more exhaustive investigation confirmed: a) the dangerous beastliness of your writings; b) the width of their distribution) – I think I should try to kill you.
TO JONATHAN CAPE, from the above
I have never before in my life felt moved to write such a letter.
I imagine that many people feel on this subject as I do.
As his editors, you are co-responsible with Ian Fleming. And if you do not stop publishing his ghastly filth, I think pressure should be brought to bear on you (I suppose via your outlets and the distribution of your other publications).
TO THE EDITOR, The New Statesman & Nation, 10 Great Turnstile, High Holborn, W.C.1.
Following a piece in the New Statesman that bemoaned the apparent death of Bond, Fleming despatched what would become his standard reply to the many fans who expressed similar regrets.
29th April, 1957
Dear Sir,
The Late James Bond
As a result of Mr. John Raymond’s poignant but premature obituary notice of Commander James Bond, R.N.V.S.R. there has been a flood of anxious enquiry.
May I therefore, as Commander Bond’s official biographer, ask you to publish the following bulletin which, according to a delicate but sure source, was recently placed on the canteen notice board of the headquarters of the Secret Service near Regent’s Park:
“After a period of anxiety the condition of No. 007 shows definite improvement. It has been confirmed that 007 was suffering from severe Fugu poisoning (a particularly virulent member of the curare group obtained from the sex glands of Japanese Globe fish). This diagnosis, for which the Research Department of the School of Tropical Medicine was responsible, has determined a course of treatment which is proving successful.
No further bulletins will be issued.
(Signed) Sir James Molony,
Department of Neurology,
St. Mary’s Hospital,
London, W.2.”
In view of the above I am hoping that, despite the cautionary note sounded by Mr. Raymond and subject, of course, to the Official Secrets Act, further biographical material will in due course be available to the public.
Yours faithfully,
Following the publication of which he wrote again on 3 May 1957 to point out a spelling error.
The Late James Bond
In the last paragraph of my letter I said “biographical” not “biological”. The science of James Bond’s physical life is after all only part of the story.
TO MISS GLADYS GALLIVEN, 1 Midhurst Drive, Goring-By-Sea, Worthing, Sussex
14th March, 1957
Thank you very much for your letter of February 7th and I am so sorry I have not answered it before. I have been away in Jamaica writing another James Bond adventure and your letter was waiting for me when I got back.
It is very kind of you to take the trouble to write and I am glad you like my books.
Why, I wonder? And, also, what do you dislike about them?
An author is always interested in learning these things from his readers and, if it would amuse you to put down in two or three hundred words the things you like and dislike about my books, in exchange I will send you an autographed copy of the latest one, “From Russia with Love”, which will be coming out in about three weeks’ time.
Again with many thanks for having taken the trouble to write.
TO MISS RENÉE HELLMAN, 2 Acacia Road, London, N.W.8.
Renée Hellman (Miss) wrote joyfully on hearing that Bond was only suffering from Fugu poisoning. She’d been hoping to save From Russia with Love for a beach holiday in Santa Margharita but the temptation had been too much.
30th April, 1957
Thank you for your charming letter and I am delighted you enjoyed the latest volume of James Bond’s biography.
I am sorry you did not save the book up to read on the sands at Santa Margharita. That is just the sort of place he would wish to be read – particularly by a girl. You must try and be more continent next Spring!
Again with very many thanks for your delightful letter.
TO MAJOR W. MACLAGAN, Trinity College, Oxford
In the guise of a station officer in the Secret Service, the Senior Tutor of Trinity College pointed out several mistakes in Fleming’s recent ‘briefing’. Apart from misspelling the name of Grant’s birthplace, he had also mentioned National Service – to which Grant, as an Irish citizen, would not have been subject. Furthermore, setting aside various elementary mistakes about the geography of Istanbul, Fleming had described the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed as containing Byzantine frescoes. ‘It is well known, even among the comparatively ill-informed inhabitants of Istanbul, that this building was only erected between 1609 and 1617 by the architect Sedefkar Mehmet Aga, and contains no earlier work.’ But he was relieved to hear that Bond’s health seemed to be ‘no worse than that of the former agent S. Holmes after his reported death at Reichenbach’.
30th April, 1957
Dear Sir,
Your minute of April 25th has been referred to the Department concerned. It is unlikely that it will find its way to the already over-burdened desk of M. but I have no doubt that appropriate action will be taken.
As the biographer of James Bond, I am very gratified to know that, in what amounts to a secret report of some 70,000 words, more errors should not have been noted by the sharp eyes and expert brains of the Trinity Station. On the other hand, I must, for my part, express astonishment that an error much more gross than those you detailed is to be found in line 1 of page 18.
Here a printer’s error has written “asexuality” that appeared in the manuscript as “sexuality”, thus rendering impossible a true appreciation of the psychology of the agent Grant.
The necessary erratum slip will appear in future editions of this volume but not thanks to the research work, in other respects meticulous, of Station Trinity.
On this occasion “reasons in writing” will not be called for but you, as commanding officer, will no doubt call for a general tightening up in the personnel of the research section.
So far as the welfare of James Bond is concerned, a bulletin from his medical advisors has been issued to the public press and will, I hope, appear this week in the correspondence columns of the “New Statesman and Nation” and “The Times Literary Supplement”.
Yours Faithfully.
TO GEOFFREY M. CUCKSON, ESQ., Nottingham
With some regret as to the lack of bondage, Fleming’s steadfast correspondent felt he could say little to match his critique of Diamonds are Forever.
30th April, 1957
Many thanks for your letter of April 26th and I am delighted that you enjoyed “From Russia, With Love”.
At the same time I am very sorry not to have had something along the lines of your admirable criticism of my last book – far more positive than my reviewers.
Bond is, in fact, suffering from Fugu poisoning (a particularly virulent member of the curare group obtained from the sex glands of the Japanese Globe fish), so I am afraid it is unlikely that a further volume of his biography will appear before next April.
Again with many thanks for your letter.
TO WREN HOWARD
14th May, 1957
Dear Bob,
“From Russia with Love”
I am delighted with your progress with the book clubs and your success in screwing them all up.
; I cannot remember how we split the profits from these book club deals before but please follow previous proportions.
Incidentally, you will be interested to know that the Express are desperately anxious to turn James Bond into a strip-cartoon. I have grave doubts about the desirability of this. A certain cachet attaches to the present operation and there is a danger that if stripped we shall descend into the Peter Cheyney class8 which, while superficially attractive from your point of view, has, I think, disadvantages for both of us. Unless the standard of these books is maintained they will lose their point and I think there is a grave danger that inflation would not only spoil the readership, but also become something of a death-watch beetle inside the author. A tendency to write still further down might result. The author would see this happening and disgust with the operation might creep in.
On the other hand, the Editor of the Express, who sees these points, says that they would only do it if they could achieve a Rolls Royce job and he is preparing some roughs for my inspection and I will let you know how things go.
As my literary chaperone, the whole problem is one upon which I would like to have William’s view in due course and perhaps you could give him the rag to chew over.
If I was a bit more hard-boiled it would be easy to guy the whole Bond operation in a great splurge of promotion and sales, but somehow it all goes against the grain a bit and I dare say much the same problem faces authors whose books are made into a lot of films.
Perhaps I have an abnormal affection for privacy and antipathy for display!
Anyway, I would welcome and abide by William’s decision.
TO RONALD NATHAN, ESQ., Reservations Controller, Elal Israel Airlines, 295 Regent Street, London, W.1.
El Al noticed that of the many flights Bond could have caught from Istanbul, there had been no mention of their own. They sent a detailed brochure to illustrate the connections available. Fleming’s reply skirted tactfully round the idea of Bond visiting the Middle East – the region seems never to have caught his fancy.
1st July, 1957
What busy bees you all are to be sure at Elal Airlines and I shall certainly amend the paragraph to include Elal when the book is reprinted.
The Man with the Golden Typewriter Page 13