The Man with the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming's James Bond Letters

It's hard to believe that it took this long for someone to publish Ian Fleming's correspondence about James Bond. His nephew, Fergus Fleming, provides generous contextual commentary on the fascinating missives. Readers will enjoy watching Fleming interact with his editors, fans, and famous friends such as David Niven, W. Somerset Maugham, and Noel Coward. Each Bond novel gets its own chapter, and there are separate chapters devoted to Fleming's exchanges with mystery author Raymond Chandler, arms expert Geoffrey Boothroyd (the real Q), and Yale librarian Herman W. Liebert (who critiqued his use of American slang). It is especially interesting to note how gentlemanly Fleming was when responding to criticism. The letters also show the prickly Fleming, who argued about print runs, royalty rates, and co-op advertising with his publisher, Jonathan Cape, and the opinionated Fleming, who had his own ideas about cover design. His desired legacy was a classic thriller that would be a "mixture of Tolstoy, Simenon, Ambler, and Koestler, with a pinch of ground Fleming." Too bad he had to settle for being the creator of one of the most famous fictional characters of all time. (Nov.)