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Author Profile
Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming, popularly known as Ian Fleming, is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling his adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories. Born on 28th May 1908 on Mayfair London, this English author and journalist also served in the Intelligence of the British Royal Navy during the Second World War and he went on to become Commander of the forces. Fleming's intelligence work provided the background for his spy novels.

Initially Fleming's Bond novels were not bestsellers in America, but when President John F. Kennedy included From Russia With Love on a list of his favourite books, sales quickly jumped. Fleming wrote 14 Bond books in all: Casino Royale (1953), Live and Let Die (1954), Moonraker (1955), Diamonds are Forever (1956), From Russia With Love (1957), Dr. No (1958), Goldfinger (1959), For Your Eyes Only (1960), Thunderball (1961), The Spy Who Loved Me (1962), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), You Only Live Twice (1964), The Man With The Golden Gun (1965), and Octopussy/The Living Daylights (1966). All of these novels have been adopted into box-office hit movies and Fleming's death, seven more have been written, the subsequent ones being written by other authors. The twenty-one Bond films have grossed over $4 billion worldwide, making it the second most successful film series ever (behind Star Wars at nearly $20 billion).

In the late 1950s, the financial success of Fleming's James Bond series allowed him to retire to Goldeneye, his Jamaican estate. Besides writing twelve novels and nine short stories featuring James Bond, Fleming also wrote the children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In his later life,

Fleming collected a library of books that had, in his opinion, "started something", and therefore were significant in the history of Western Civilization. He concentrated on science and technology, e.g. On the Origin of Species, yet he also collected sociological milestones such as Mein Kampf and Scouting for Boys. Fleming died at the age of fifty-six, on August 12, 1964, in Canterbury, Kent, England, and was later buried in the churchyard of Sevenhampton village, near Swindon.

Compiled By : Mahdin Mahboob