The Man with the Golden Typewriter

by Bloomsbury Publishing

  Meanwhile you have had a note from me about Mr. Liebert from the Yale Library, and, unilaterally, I have taken advantage of his offer and he is at the moment correcting the American lingo and the American background to the story with a delighted and very sharp pen. He has undertaken to return the corrected manuscript to me by July 6th, since Capes want to get it into page proof during August.

  Perhaps it would be as well for you to put away the uncorrected typescript I sent you and wait to see Cape’s page proofs before you decide what you want to do.

  My own recommendation is for you to take the rough with the smooth and drown your doubts in strong liquor.

  Incidentally, would you please activate your publicity people and ask them to send me some reviews of T’ball. I have had nothing from Vikings except a few meagre scraps early on, nor any news of how the book is going.

  Macmillans, as you know, are producing their Omnibus on July 24th, and no doubt this will also activate your sales of Thunderball.

  TO MRS. JAMES BOND, 721, Davidson Road, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia 18, Pasadena

  ‘It was inevitable we should catch up with you . . .’ On which ominous note Mrs James Bond began her letter of 1 February 1961. Fleming had never made any secret of the fact that he had borrowed his hero’s name from one of his favourite books, Birds of the West Indies, by the American ornithologist James Bond. But now, almost ten years after he had written Casino Royale, news reached the Bonds that ‘you had brazenly picked up the name of a real human being for your rascal’. They didn’t really mind, as the real Bond had led an adventurous life, his colourful exploits being not too far, in the ornithological scale of things, from those of his fictional equivalent. ‘I told MY JB he could sue you for defamation of character,’ Mrs Bond concluded cheerfully. ‘But JBBA [James Bond British Agent] is too much fun for that and JB authenticus regards the whole thing as “a joke”.’

  20th June, 1961

  Dear Mrs James Bond,

  I don’t know where to begin to ask your forgiveness for my very tardy acknowledgement to your letter of February 1st.

  I received it in Jamaica and since I was almost on the way to Nassau I decided to telephone the Chaplins on arrival and get in touch with you and your husband.

  Unfortunately I could get no reply from their telephone number and I again put your letter aside. Then, when I got back to England in March, I proceeded to have a swift heart attack which laid me out until now, and it is only today that your letter is again before me and blackest of consciences is sitting on my shoulder.

  I will confess at once that your husband has every reason to sue me in every possible position and for practically every kind of libel in the book, for I will now confess the damnable truth.

  I have a small house which I built in Oracabessa in Jamaica just after the war and, some ten years ago a confirmed bachelor on the eve of marriage, I decided to take my mind off the dreadful prospect by writing a thriller.

  I was determined that my secret agent should be as anonymous a personality as possible, even his name should be the very reverse of the kind of “Peregrine Carruthers” whom one meets in this type of fiction.

  At that time one of my bibles was, and still is, “Birds of the West Indies” by James Bond, and it struck me that this name, brief, unromantic and yet very masculine, was just what I needed and so James Bond II was born, and started off on the career that, I must confess, has been meteoric culminating with his choice by your President as his favourite thriller hero (see Life of March 17th).

  So there is my dreadful confession together with limitless apologies and thanks for the fun and fame I have had from the most extraordinary chance choice of so many years ago.

  In return I can only offer your James Bond unlimited use of the name Ian Fleming for any purposes he may think fit. Perhaps one day he will discover some particularly horrible species of bird which he would like to christen in an insulting fashion that might be a way of getting his own back.

  Anyway I send you both my most affectionate regards and good wishes, and should you ever return to Jamaica I would be very happy indeed to lend you my house for a week or so, so that you may inspect in comfort the shrine where the second James Bond was born.

  TO R. CHOPPING, ESQ., The Store House, The Quay, Wivenhoe, Essex

  22nd June, 1961

  The jacket season has come round once again and I and Cape do pray that you will once again be the artist for the same fee of two hundred guineas, if you still think that reasonable recompense.

  If, as I desperately hope, you agree we are in rather a quandary this time to suggest a suitable motif, and it occurred to me that you might have some brilliant idea for there are no emblems in the book which would be in any way suitable.

  The title of the book is “The Spy Who Loved Me” and so what suggests itself of course is a juxtaposition between a dagger or a gun and an emblem representing love, rather on the lines of your gun with the rose.

  But what can we use now?

  How about one of those frilly heart shaped Valentines with a dagger thrust through it?

  Or there might be young ivy leaves entwined in a gun, or forget-me-nots.

  But none of these ideas thrill me with the possible exception of the Valentine with a splendid red heart pierced by a dagger.

  But it crossed my mind that you have painted many keepsakes for people and that something might conceivably suggest itself to you.

  Anyway, first of all, will you please do the jacket and, secondly, will you please have a brilliant idea?

  I am back on all fours again and any time you are in London we could meet perhaps here and rub our two brains together.

  I will now ring up Heywood Hill and see if they have any Valentines.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  22nd June, 1961

  Very many thanks for your letter of yesterday and I am delighted, but mildly astonished, that your Children’s Book department has swallowed CCBB with so much gusto.

  As to the points, they are all perfectly legitimate, except that CCBB in fact does a hundred in top gear, though I may have written this in a muddled fashion.

  Now you are extremely kind to suggest that someone in Capes might do the editorial polishing and correct the little bits and pieces that have been brought up. I really can hardly bear to look at these stories again and anyway I am knee deep in “The Spy” and other bits and pieces.

  So could I now leave the text to you and merely have a final look through the finished product?

  I think I have very good news about Trog, whose real name and address is W.E. Fawkes, 24A Eton Avenue, N.W.3.

  He is, in theory, delighted with the whole idea and has taken the stories off to read. He has been longing to illustrate a book and is not in any way tied up. So it is possible that you will have another valuable property on your hands as he really is a household name, which will vastly help to sell the series.

  He very much likes the idea of a partnership with two thirds of the royalties to me and one third to him.

  When he has given his final decision I think I will ask him to get in direct touch with you so that you can talk over the number of illustrations, the use of colour, etc.

  I told him that as far as I knew you had no suggested date for publication and that you weren’t contemplating trying to rush this out in time for Christmas, but, in fact, he is a very fast worker and I think would fit in with any plans you may have.

  I see the point about trying to have three or four stories to start off with, but I think there is a snag in this.

  You will presumably have to market the books at around ten or twelve shillings, and while the average parent might go to two volumes I rather doubt if they would spread themselves to all four.

  Moreover, there is the snag that at this moment I haven’t got two more adventures in mind, though I dare say I could conjure another couple up fairly quickly if you were very insistent.

  Anyway I will let you know directly Trog gives his decisio
n and then we can get the machinery into action.

  As far as “The Spy” is concerned I have nearly finished my own corrections, but in the meantime a remarkable chap has sprung to life in the Library at Yale University with some very sharp comments on the Americanese in “Thunderball”. I was so impressed with his correspondence that I have now engaged him to go through “The Spy” with the sharpest possible pen to smarten up all the gangsterese and other American angles. He has agreed with alacrity, and has undertaken to air mail the text back by July 6th.

  Since I fancy he may be very drastic this is going to involve me probably in a great deal of rewriting, but I hope a much improved book.

  So I can’t really give you a firm date for delivery of the text until I see how much has got to be done.

  Anyway I shall do my very best to get it all finished by the end of July and I hope this will be all right with you.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  Chopping’s artwork for Thunderball had been sent to Macmillan in the US for the attention of their designers. It was returned in a badly scuffed state.

  27th June, 1961

  I am quite horrified with what Macmillans have done with the Chopping picture and I have no idea what can be done to rescue it.

  Chopping originals fetch between £200 and £500 on the London market and God knows how much financial damage has been done to this one, let alone the sentimental value to me.

  Since it was through your agency that this was sent to Macmillans I think it would be better for you to write to them as from one publisher to another, sending Al Hart a Photostat to demonstrate the damage.

  By the way, something else horrible has happened! I took my son this afternoon to see the new Walt Disney film and it has a flying motor car which circles a church spire! Moreover “The Absent Minded Professor” builds it in his back yard.

  This really is the limit.

  Would you send one of your intelligence spies to have a look at the film and suggest what amendments we ought to make?

  Personally I think we could get away with cutting out the spire of Canterbury Cathedral, but it really is pretty maddening.

  TO GUY WELLBY, ESQ., 18 & 20 Garrick Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C.2.

  Fleming thought a diamond might feature to advantage in Chopping’s composition for the jacket and had asked a jeweller friend, Guy Wellby, to provide photographs. In the end it proved an unnecessary (and expensive) exercise.

  12th July, 1961

  My dear Guy,

  Thank you very much for all the trouble you took over the diamond.

  I have now put the whole problem firmly in the lap of Michael Howard, Production Director at Capes, and in due course, though not very quickly I expect, he will make up his mind about the jacket.

  My own guess is that the diamond will not work very well for the present book but that we will keep the photographs for possible use in the future.

  Anyway, thank you very much indeed and your friend, the owner of this wonderful stone, for your swift and kindly aid, and please in due course send me a bill for the cost, addressed to me in the name of my company, Glidrose Productions Limited.

  Please don’t forget to thank the owner most warmly for his kindness.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  12th July, 1961

  CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG

  Trog says he is delighted with the two stories and is “terribly keen” to do the illustrations.

  He is going on holiday from July 22nd to August 4th and cannot do anything before his return.

  May I now leave it to you to contact him direct and carry the ball from there, making an agreement with Trog on the lines of my previous suggestions?

  CHOPPING JACKET – THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

  Chopping will be delighted to do a jacket but has upped his price to 250 guineas and cannot get going for about three weeks.

  He scribbled some vague ideas and will scribble some more.

  I think this may look a bit like a flower book, and I now suggest to you that he should perhaps cross the carnation with your commando dagger well polished up, with a cipher book background.

  You may think the carnation should be pinned to the cipher page with a lover’s knot brooch. I have borrowed some photographs of possible diamond brooches from Cartiers. They would be quite happy to cough up the brooches for this purpose if we paid the insurance. (Mr. Brown at Cartiers is the man to contact).

  As to the cipher background, the specimen page I gave to Dickie Chopping is from a Bentley Code10, which they might not like to cough up.

  On another page from this book, which I have had photographed, white on black to give a better background, is technical stuff which would not be copyright.

  Dickie says that white on black would be very difficult for him and I see his point. But perhaps it could be technically fudged in one way or another.

  I enclose specimens of all the possible pages, Dickie only has the crumpled one.

  Apart from this possible design I have located in London probably the largest blue-white heart shaped diamond in the world. This belongs to a friend of Guy Wellby, the head of Wellby’s, the jewellers in Garrick Street, and at my expense he has had transparencies made of it and also blown up replicas. (They could, of course, be blown up in colour). The name of the photographer is on the box.

  I don’t know if you feel that something could be made of this, either now or in the future, if in the future perhaps you would like to keep them for your files.

  Now hurrying on with the corrections to the Spy and with a pile of other chores on my desk I must beg you please to take over from here with Dickie, insuring [sic] that Tony Colwell informs Cartiers and Guy Wellby if we do not require their various jewellery, and otherwise coping with detail.

  Personally, I think the carnation with your dagger is the right idea.

  Sorry to transfer these two chunks of work on to your lap, but mine is not feeling very solid at the moment.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  27th July, 1961

  Here now is “The Spy Who Loved Me” cleaned up as best I know how and I hope to your satisfaction.

  Could you give me any idea of when I am likely to have page proofs?

  My present plans are to stay in London and Sandwich for the foreseeable future.

  By the way, as you may know a vast film deal involving all the Bond books is in progress with United Artists spearheaded by Harry Saltzman who produced “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” and “The Entertainer”. It looks as if they will start with “Dr. No”.

  Saltzman has most grandiose ideas about book sales to be co-ordinated with the film due around April, and he is blasting hell out of Pan’s because he can’t find my titles even in Foyles or Hatchards.

  He is talking of subsidising a print order in Pan’s running literally into millions of copies of my titles, and it would obviously be a good idea for Cape’s to ride on the back of this wave of Bonds in some way or another.

  But perhaps it would be a good idea for you to keep in touch with Pan’s and get them to let you know exactly what they are planning, particularly in respect of whichever picture Saltzman does first.

  If this thing gets off the ground it will presumably be wise of you to have fairly solid stocks of all the titles on hand.

  By the way, when your editress has finished tidying up the Chitty stories could you please let me have copies and I will then try and bend my mind to producing two more.

  I have received tearful letters from Al Hart so I am sure that everything to do with the Chopping jacket will sort itself out. As to the next one, I feel more and more that it should be your commando dagger crossed with a carnation. A possible background instead of the cipher page might be a torn sheet of paper bearing the title and author’s name, that would leave some corners for the famous wood grain you like so much!

  TO JOHN HAYWARD, ESQ., C.B.E., 19 Carlyle Mansions, London, S.W.3.

  Although Fleming’s relationship with The Book Collector rem
ained uneasy he nevertheless valued the opinions of its editor.

  1st August, 1961

  I am still proposing to descend upon you, but since I am being forced to spend most of my time at Sandwich this is not being easy to contrive. So please just expect me sometime this month.

  Meanwhile I have been in lengthy correspondence with a certain Fritz Liebert of Yale University Library, who has corrected the Americanese in my next book.

  In the course of our correspondence he expressed his highest regard for yourself and claims acquaintanceship both with you and with John Carter.

  Anyway with his last letter he sent me the enclosed11 and I wonder if you think it would be suitable for reproduction in The Book Collector, since, as you will see, only two hundred copies have been printed in America.

  Personally, I find the story and the picture most attractive.

  I have told Liebert that I am passing it on to you with my recommendation, but adding that you are a law unto yourself in these matters. At the same time I asked him for freedom to print in case the piece passed muster with you.

  Please don’t bother to answer, but when I see you you must tell me more about this Liebert man, who has, in fact, been exceptionally helpful to me out of the blue.

  TO SIR WILLIAM STEPHENSON, 450 East 52nd Street, New York

  16th August, 1961

  In accordance with your instructions via the darling Miss Green I have the honour to report that my team of mechanics report that the engine, though less oiled than previously, is now running on at least eleven out of its twelve cylinders, and that the twelfth should start firing soon so long as I continue to obey their infuriating instructions, which are, broadly speaking, that I should do none of the things I want to do.

  In fact, as possibly in your case, the whole business has been a timely warning not to try and pour a gallon into a pint pot, and I am taking the whole thing very philosophically.

  In particular, I have not been siezed [sic] by what they call “coronary neurosis”, which apparently is a very real consequence of one of these attacks. It results in people thinking of nothing except about their health and going about as if they were made of spun Venetian glass. Such people are an infernal nuisance, and since my malady got into the newspapers (in fact to my delight The Times had my obituary re-written by a friend of mine) I am regarded as fair game by all these morons who bore me to death with tales of their symptoms and of the pills and tests they have to take.