Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming (London, 1908 - Canterbury, 1964) was a British writer, journalist and intelligence officer, best known for creating the James Bond novels. Writing in English after the Second World War, he turned his spy 007 into one of the most recognisable characters of twentieth-century popular fiction, partly because he mixed espionage with luxury, travel and everyday detail.

He came from a wealthy family linked to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. His father, Valentine, was MP for Henley and was killed on the Western Front in 1917 during the First World War. Ian was educated at Eton, where he was more successful at athletics than in the classroom, and then at Sandhurst, which he left before finishing. His mother, Evelyn, shaped many of his decisions. She sent him to a school in Austria to prepare for a career at the Foreign Office, and he later studied briefly at the universities of Munich and Geneva.

He never entered the diplomatic service. In 1931 he began working as a journalist for Reuters, and in 1933 he covered in Moscow the trial of engineers from the Metropolitan-Vickers company. He tried and failed to interview Stalin, though he was surprised to receive a personally signed apology. He then turned to banking and stockbroking with little success, and contemporaries described him as a young man more interested in enjoying life than in building a career.

The Second World War changed his path. From 1939 he worked as personal assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence, in Room 39 of the Admiralty. There he helped plan Operation Goldeneye and oversaw intelligence units such as 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. This work gave him a detailed knowledge of secret services, operations and the workings of government, which he later drew on in his novels.

Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, was written in 1952, when Fleming was forty-four, and it sold well from the start. Eleven novels and two short story collections followed between 1953 and 1966. His books are known for their brisk pace, their precise descriptions of cars, food and places, and a tone that blends Cold War tension with a dry irony. He also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction.

His private life centred on his marriage to Ann Charteris, with whom he had a son, Caspar. A heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life, he died of heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56, shortly after completing his last book.

Fleming's legacy is considerable. His novels rank among the best-selling works of fiction ever published, his creation has inspired many films, and The Times placed him fourteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 1968 other authors have continued the series, which shows how far the character has outlived the period in which he was created.