The James Bond Bedside Companion (4 page)

Unlike the rest of his novels, CASINO ROYALE was written entirely from Fleming's own personal experiences and imagination. For instance, Fleming used his impressions of the casinos at Le Touquet and Deauville in Northern France for the background of Royale-lesEaux. The camera-bomb trick, in which two hit men are blown up by their own bomb, was used by the Russians in an assassination attempt on von Papen in Ankara during World War II. In this particular instance, all the detail Fleming needed was already in his head. The only corrections that were required dealt with grammar, word choice, and spelling. (He had spelled Bond's gun "Biretta" instead of "Beretta.") The CASINO ROYALE manuscript was 238 pages long.

When the novel was completed, it was time to return home. But before they left Jamaica, Anne Rothermere became Mrs. Ian Fleming in Port Maria's town hall on March 24. Noel Coward and his secretary were witnesses.

Fleming kept his book a secret for the first few weeks after returning to England. There was the job at Kernsley House to attend to, and he had just accepted a tempting proposition. His lifelong friend, Ivar Bryce, and perhaps his closest American friend, Ernest Cuneo, had recently acquired the North American Newspaper
Alliance
. While Fleming was
stopping over at Bryce's country home in Vermont, Cuneo and Bryce offered him the position of European vice president. Never one to be idle, Fleming agreed to it and found time to perform his functions for Kemsley House as well as for NANA.

On May 12, Fleming was back in England again, and was having lunch with his old friend, poet/novelist William Plomer. Fleming had known Plomer since the thirties when he wrote him a fan letter. Plomer also happened to be a reader for the prestigious publishing house, Jonathan Cape, Ltd. During their conversation, Fleming asked Plomer a curious question. "How does one get cigarette smoke out of a woman once you've got it in?" Fleming went on to explain that the word "exhale" somehow did not describe the act properly. Plomer realized that Fleming had been writing a book. He implored Fleming to show it to him, and a month later, the author gave Plomer the manuscript of CASINO ROYALE to read. Fleming was very humble about the entire matter and acted as if he was ashamed of what he'd written.

But Fleming knew he had tapped something within himself by writing the book. It had been a shot of adrenalin, and now nothing could stop him. He was suddenly excited by the prospect of becoming a thriller writer and following in the footsteps of authors he admired: Raymond Chandler, Eric Ambler, Georges Simenon, among others. On May 17, a month before he gave Plomer his manuscript, an enthusiastic and confident Fleming ordered a gold-plated typewriter from the Royal Typewriter Company in New York Ivar Bryce brought it over on his next trip to England. In jest, Fleming wrote to Kemsley House's New York representative that since he was unsure what type of paper should be used in a golden typewriter, he was ordering his "personal goatherds in Morocco" to manufacture a thousand "sheets of vellum." These would then be sent to Cartier to be "studded with diamonds." He went on to say that if this did not signify that he was a "writer of distinction," then perhaps he could use his "own blood as ink" to round off the picture! It is fitting that Ian Fleming completed his first novel on a golden typewriter. By purchasing it, he demonstrated his belief in himself as a novelist.

After reading CASINO ROYALE, William Plomer promptly passed it to Cape's other reader, Daniel George. Both Plomer and George were extremely impressed with the novel; they strongly recommended its publication to Jonathan Cape. Cape had also known Fleming since the thirties, and had published some of Peter Fleming's works. The verdict was that CASINO ROYALE would be published if revisions were made. Fleming set to work immediately, and by the end of August, the final manuscript was submitted to Plomer.

Ian Fleming and the desk at which he wrote all of the James Bond novels. Behind him is a treasured collection of Vienna Riding School paintings. (Photo by Mary Slater.)

The original dust jacket cover from the first British edition of
CASINO ROYALE,
published by Jonathan Cape, Ltd. in
1953.
Ian Fleming devised the cover himself. (Photo courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape, Ltd.)

Coincidentally, Anne Fleming gave birth that same August to a son, Caspar Robert, and Ian Fleming, to his own surprise, was enjoying marriage and fatherhood. And in October of 1952, Jonathan Cape accepted CASINO ROYALE for publication in April of the following year. Contracts were signed, and a series of James Bond novels was projected. With the lucrative forecast of fame and fortune and the responsibilities of supporting a family in front of him, Fleming bought a company to ease the tax burdens he was likely to assume as a successful novelist. It was called Glidrose Productions, and Fleming became a director. Glidrose became the "James Bond Company" and was the owner of the copyright to the novels. During the last months of 1952, the Flemings bought a beautiful Regency house in Victoria Square. The year was one of fresh starts for Ian Fleming: he had a new wife; a new son; the prospect of a new career with his friends Bryce and Cuneo; a new house; and a new life ahead of him as the creator of James Bond.

I
n January of 1953, Ian and Anne Fleming flew to New York, then took the Silver Meteor to St. Petersburg, Florida. Fleming wanted to research a worm factory located there for his next book. From Tampa, the couple flew to Jamaica, where Ian Fleming wrote the second James Bond novel, provisionally tided THE UNDERTAKER'S WIND. It was changed to LIVE AND LET DIE, and the book contained locations in New York, Florida, and Jamaica.

The original manuscript for LIVE AND LET DIE went through many changes and revisions. One paragraph that was deleted was at the end of the novel after Solitaire's line, "What about my back?" Fleming had Bond reach his hand down Solitaire's pajama top and tell her that her back must get well soon because she'll never know when she may need it! Also, in the original manuscript, Felix Leiter does not survive the shark attack and is dead when Bond finds him in their Fonda hotel. Naomi Burton, Fleming's American agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd., later protested the killing of such a fine character, and, perhaps at her insistence, Fleming eventually allowed Leiter to live. Instead of having both arms, a leg, most of his stomach, and part of his face missing, Leiter just lost one arm, half a leg, and received minor face lacerations.

After leaving Jamaica with the first draft of a novel, Fleming sometimes allowed select friends other than William Plomer to read the non-revised version. Clare Blanshard, who had been a close friend of his since their days in Naval Intelligence during World War II and was now the New York representative for Kemsley Newspapers, read LIVE AND LET DIE in one night, and at Fleming's request, made a list of comments. Fleming also managed to persuade Ms. Blanshard to research barracuda teeth for him at the New York Public Library.

On April 13, 1953, CASINO ROYALE was published. The first printing amounted to 4,750 copies, and was sold out by May. Today copies are extremely rare and are worth hundreds of dollars apiece. There was a second printing in May of 1953, and a third in May of 1954. The original jacket was devised by Fleming himself, and consisted of nine "bleeding" hearts on a grey background with the words CASINO ROYALE in gold and an inscription, "a whisper of love, a whisper of hate," in the middle of the pattern of hearts. The jacket was later redesigned by Pat Marriott.

The fact that CASINO ROYALE was published by Jonathan Cape, who hadn't really delved into the suspense genre before, gave the book a certain prestige and when the reviews came out, Fleming had a critical winner. The Times
Literary Supplement
said that "Mr. Ian Fleming's first novel is an extremely engaging affair," and that he might become the best new thriller writer since Eric Ambler." R. D. Charques in the
Spectator
said, ". . . lively, most ingenious in detail, on the surface as tough as they are made and charmingly well-bred beneath, nicely written and except for a too ingeniously sadistic bout of brutality—very entertaining reading."

Many of Fleming's friends liked it as well. Somerset Maugham and Paul Gallico both praised the work, and suddenly he was being compared to Peter Cheyney and others. The royalties from the book didn't amount to as much as he'd hoped, but Fleming looked forward to the prospect of an American sale. That spring, Fleming became a client of Curtis Brown, Ltd. in New York. His agent, Naomi Burton, was struck by the card game in the story, which she felt was "frightfully excitingly written." She offered the book to three publishers, Doubleday, Norton, and Knopf, all of whom rejected it.

While CASINO ROYALE was making the rounds with American publishers, Ian and Anne traveled to the South of France in April on behalf of Kemsley House to observe Jacques Cousteau salvaging a Graeco-Roman galley. Buried treasure fascinated Fleming, and indeed, the plot of LIVE AND LET DIE had to do with a pirate hoard of seventeenth-century gold coins. Three articles Fleming wrote on the Cousteau expedition for the
Sunday Times
show his mastery of describing the underwater world. The Cousteau experience no doubt gave Fleming a great deal of the detail he needed to fill out LIVE AND LET DIE.

When Fleming returned to New York in May, Naomi Burton introduced him to Al Hart at Macmillan Publishing Co. Hart read CASINO ROYALE and was struck by its "sheer readability." Macmillan made an offer, and the novel was scheduled for early 1954. Al Hart edited the first six Bond novels in America, and became a good friend and drinking companion to Fleming whenever he was in New York. By the end of 1953, the James Bond snowball was beginning to grow.

The beginning of 1954 found Ian and Anne traveling again to Jamaica for their two months leave. Ian arrived with a temperature and flu, but nevertheless began writing the third Bond opus, MOONRAKER. He apparently had some trouble naming this one, for he alternated between two working titles, MONDAYS ARE HELL and HELL IS HERE. MOONRAKER was a much lower-key story than the previous two, and Fleming had doubts about it. In jest, he wrote to Clare Blanshard in New York that he wasn't sure about the book yet because there "was no sex in the first 30,000 words!" The ending to the novel underwent many changes. The first draft featured Gala Brand (the heroine) taking a month's leave in France with Bond, after they both receive the Queen's award of the George Cross. One revision featured only Gala receiving the award, with the two of them still running away together. A further revision found Gala opting to remain in England to marry a "Peter Bruce." In the final version, Gala is engaged to "Detective Inspector Vivian," and Fleming, for once, did not end his story with a girl in James Bond's arms.

On March 23, CASINO ROYALE was published in the United States by Macmillan. The book went virtually unnoticed. Actually, Ian Fleming had little success in America until 1961, when President Kennedy stated that he was a James Bond fan. In the fifties, Fleming was successful primarily in England, where James Bond had a sizable following. But even the British were slow to catch on, and it wasn't until two or three years later that the books began selling at a rate sufficient to make the literary world sit up and take notice.