Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming ( 28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964 ) was an English author , journalist and naval intelligence officer , best known for his James Bond series of spy novel s . Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co . , and his father was the Member of Parliament for UK Parliament constituency from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917 . Educated at Eton , Sandhurst and the universities of Munich and Geneva , Fleming moved through a number of jobs before he started writing . While working for Britain ' s Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War , Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units , 30 Assault Unit and T - Force . His wartime service and his career as a journalist provided much of the background , detail and depth of the James Bond novels . Fleming wrote his first Bond novel , " Casino Royale " , in 1952 . It was a success , with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand . Eleven Bond novels and two short - story collections followed between 1953 and 1966 . The novels revolved around James Bond , an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service , commonly known as MI6 . Bond was also known by his code number , 007 , and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve . The Bond stories rank among the best - selling series of fictional books of all time , having sold over 100 million copies worldwide . Fleming also wrote the children ' s story " Chitty - Chitty - Bang - Bang " and two works of non - fiction . In 2008 , " The Times " ranked Fleming fourteenth on its list of " The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 " . He was married to Ann Charteris , who was divorced from the second Viscount Rothermere as a result of her affair with Fleming . Fleming and Charteris had a son , Caspar . Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker who suffered from heart disease ; he died in 1964 , aged 56 , from a heart attack . Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously , and others have since produced Bond novels . Fleming ' s creation has appeared in film twenty - five times , portrayed by seven actors . Biography . Birth and family . Ian Fleming was born on 28 May 1908 , at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair . His mother was Evelyn St Croix Rose , and his father was Valentine Fleming , the Member of Parliament for UK Parliament constituency from 1910 . Fleming was the grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming , who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust and the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co . In 1914 , with the start of the first world war , Valentine joined " C " Squadron , Queen ' s Own Oxfordshire Hussars , and rose to the rank of major . He was killed by German shelling on the Western Front on 20 May 1917 ; Winston Churchill wrote an obituary that appeared in " The Times " . Because the family owned an estate at Arnisdale , Valentine ' s death was commemorated on the Glenelg War Memorial . Fleming ' s elder brother Peter ( 1907 – 1971 ) became a travel writer and married actress Celia Johnson . Peter served with the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War , was later commissioned under Colin Gubbins to help establish the Auxiliary Units , and became involved in behind - the - lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war . Fleming also had two younger brothers , Michael ( 1913 – 1940 ) and Richard ( 1911 – 1977 ) , and a younger maternal half - sister born out of wedlock , cellist Amaryllis Fleming ( 1925 – 1999 ) , whose father was the artist Augustus John . Amaryllis was conceived during a long - term affair between John and Evelyn Fleming that started in 1923 , some six years after the death of Valentine Fleming . Education and early life . In 1914 Fleming attended Durnford School , a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset . He did not enjoy his time at Durnford ; his life included unpalatable food , physical hardship and bullying . In 1921 Fleming enrolled at Eton College . Although not a high achiever academically , he excelled at athletics and held the title of " Victor Ludorum " for two years between 1925 and 1927 . He also edited a school magazine , " The Wyvern " . His lifestyle at Eton brought him into conflict with his housemaster , E . V . Slater , who disapproved of Fleming ' s attitude , his hair oil , his ownership of a car and his relations with women . Slater persuaded Fleming ' s mother to remove him from Eton a term early for a crammer course to gain entry to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst . He spent less than a year there , leaving in 1927 without gaining a commission , after contracting gonorrhea . In 1927 , to prepare Fleming for possible entry into the Foreign Office , his mother sent him to the Tennerhof in Kitzbühel , Austria , a small private school run by the Adlerian disciple and former British spy Ernan Forbes Dennis and his novelist wife , Phyllis Bottome . After improving his language skills there , he studied briefly at Munich University and the University of Geneva . While in Geneva , Fleming began a romance with Monique Panchaud de Bottomes and the couple were briefly engaged in 1931 . His mother disapproved and made him break off the relationship . He applied for entry to the Foreign Office , but failed the examinations . His mother again intervened in his affairs , lobbying Sir Roderick Jones , head of Reuters News Agency . In October 1931 he was given a position as a sub - editor and journalist for Reuters . In 1933 Fleming spent time in Moscow , where he covered the Stalinist show trial of six engineers from the British company Metropolitan - Vickers . While there he applied for an interview with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin , and was amazed to receive a personally signed note apologising for not being able to attend . Fleming bowed to family pressure in October 1933 , and went into banking with a position at the financiers Cull & Co . In 1935 , he moved to Rowe and Pitman on Bishopsgate as a stockbroker . Fleming was unsuccessful in both roles . Early in 1939 , Fleming began an affair with Ann O ' Neill ( née Charteris ) , who was married to Baron O ' Neill ; she was also having an affair with Esmond Harmsworth , the heir to Lord Rothermere , owner of the " Daily Mail " . Second World War . In May 1939 Fleming was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey , Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy , to become his personal assistant . He joined the organisation full time in August 1939 , with the codename " 17F " , and worked out of Room 39 at The Admiralty . Fleming ' s biographer , Andrew Lycett , notes that Fleming had " no obvious qualifications " for the role . As part of his appointment , Fleming was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in July 1939 , initially as lieutenant , but promoted to commander a few months later . Fleming proved invaluable as Godfrey ' s personal assistant and excelled in administration . Godfrey was known as an abrasive character who made a number of enemies within government circles . He frequently used Fleming as a liaison with other sections of the government ' s wartime administration , such as the Secret Intelligence Service , the Political Warfare Executive , the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) , the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Prime Minister ' s staff . On 29 September 1939 , soon after the start of the war , Godfrey circulated a memorandum that , " bore all the hallmarks of . . . Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming " , according to historian Ben Macintyre . It was called the Trout Memo and compared the deception of an enemy in wartime to fly fishing . The memo contained a number of schemes to be considered for use against the Axis powers to lure U - boats and German surface ships towards minefields . Number 28 on the list was an idea to plant misleading papers on a corpse that would be found by the enemy ; this suggestion is similar to Operation Mincemeat , the successful 1943 plan to conceal the intended invasion of Italy from North Africa , although that idea was developed by Charles Cholmondoley in October 1942 . The recommendation in the Trout Memo was titled : " A Suggestion ( not a very nice one ) " , and continued : " The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson : a corpse dressed as an airman , with despatches in his pockets , could be dropped on the coast , supposedly from a parachute that has failed . I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval Hospital , but , of course , it would have to be a fresh one . " In 1940 Fleming and Godfrey contacted Kenneth Mason , Professor of Geography at Oxford University , about the preparation of reports on the geography of countries involved in military operations . These reports were the precursors of the " Naval Intelligence Division Geographical Handbook Series " produced between 1941 and 1946 . Operation Ruthless , a plan aimed at obtaining details of the Enigma codes used by the German Navy , was instigated by a memo written by Fleming to Godfrey on 12 September 1940 . The idea was to " obtain " a German bomber , man it with a German - speaking crew dressed in Luftwaffe uniforms , and crash it into the English Channel . The crew would then attack their German rescuers and bring their boat and Enigma machine back to England . Much to the annoyance of Alan Turing and Peter Twinn at Bletchley Park , the mission was never carried out . According to Fleming ' s niece , Lucy , an official at the Royal Air Force pointed out that if they were to drop a downed Heinkel bomber in the English Channel , it would probably sink rather quickly . Fleming also worked with Colonel " Wild Bill " Donovan , President Franklin D . Roosevelt ' s special representative on intelligence co - operation between London and Washington . In May 1941 Fleming accompanied Godfrey to the United States , where he assisted in writing a blueprint for the Office of the Coordinator of Information , the department which turned into the Office of Strategic Services and eventually became the CIA . In 1941 – 42 Admiral Godfrey put Fleming in charge of Operation Golden Eye , a plan to maintain an intelligence framework in Spain in the event of a German takeover of the territory . Fleming ' s plan involved maintaining communication with Gibraltar and launching sabotage operations against the Nazis . In 1941 , Fleming liaised with Donovan over American involvement in a measure intended to ensure that the Germans did not dominate the seaways . 30 Assault Unit . In 1942 Fleming formed a unit of commandos , known as No . 30 Commando or 30 Assault Unit ( 30AU ) , composed of specialist intelligence troops . 30AU ' s job was to be near the front line of an advance — sometimes in front of it — to seize enemy documents from previously targeted headquarters . The unit was based on a German group headed by Otto Skorzeny , who had undertaken similar activities in the Battle of Crete in May 1941 . The German unit was thought by Fleming to be " one of the most outstanding innovations in German intelligence " . Fleming did not fight in the field with the unit , but selected targets and directed operations from the rear . On its formation the unit was only thirty strong , but it grew to five times that size . The unit was filled with men from other commando units , and trained in unarmed combat , safe - cracking and lock - picking at the SOE facilities . In late 1942 Captain ( later Rear - Admiral ) Edmund Rushbrooke replaced Godfrey as head of the Naval Intelligence Division , and Fleming ' s influence in the organisation declined , although he retained control over 30AU . Fleming was unpopular with the unit ' s members , who disliked his referring to them as his " Red Indians " . Before the Normandy landings , most of 30AU ' s operations were in the Mediterranean , although it secretly participated in the Dieppe Raid in a failed pinch raid for an Enigma machine and related materials . Because of its successes in Sicily and Italy , 30AU became greatly trusted by naval intelligence . In March 1944 , Fleming oversaw the distribution of intelligence to Royal Navy units in preparation for Operation Overlord and followed the unit into Germany after it located , in Tambach Castle , the German naval archives from 1870 . Fleming visited 30AU in the field during and after Operation Overlord , especially following an attack on Cherbourg for which he was concerned that the unit had been incorrectly used as a regular commando force rather than an intelligence - gathering unit . This wasted the men ' s specialist skills , risked their safety on operations that did not justify the use of such skilled operatives , and threatened the vital gathering of intelligence . Afterwards , the management of these units was revised . Fleming was replaced as head of 30AU on 6 June 1944 , but maintained some involvement . In December 1944 he was posted on an intelligence fact - finding trip to the Far East on behalf of the Director of Naval Intelligence . Much of the trip was spent identifying opportunities for 30AU in the Pacific , although the unit ultimately saw little action because of the Japanese surrender . T - Force . The success of 30AU led to the August 1944 decision to establish a " Target Force " , which became known as T - Force . The official memorandum , held at The National Archives in London , describes the unit ' s primary role : " T - Force = Target Force , to guard and secure documents , persons , equipment , with combat and Intelligence personnel , after capture of large towns , ports etc . in liberated and enemy territory . " Fleming sat on the committee that selected the targets for the T - Force unit , and listed them in the " Black Books " that were issued to the unit ' s officers . The infantry component of T - Force was in part made up of the 5th Battalion , King ' s Regiment , which supported the Second Army . It was responsible for securing targets of interest for the British military , including nuclear laboratories , gas research centres and individual rocket scientists . The unit ' s most notable discoveries came during the advance on the German port of Kiel , in the research centre for German engines used in the V - 2 rocket , Messerschmitt Me 163 fighters and high - speed U - boats . Fleming would later use elements of the activities of T - Force in his writing , particularly in his 1955 Bond novel " Moonraker " . In 1942 Fleming attended an Anglo - American intelligence summit in Jamaica and , despite the constant heavy rain during his visit , he decided to live on the island once the war was over . His friend Ivar Bryce helped find a plot of land in Saint Mary Parish where , in 1945 , Fleming had a house built , which he named Goldeneye . The name of the house and estate where he wrote his novels has many possible sources . Fleming himself mentioned both his wartime Operation Golden Eye and Carson McCullers ' 1941 novel " Reflections in a Golden Eye " , which described the use of British naval bases in the Caribbean by the American navy . Post - war . Upon Fleming ' s demobilisation in May 1945 , he became the Foreign Manager in the Kemsley newspaper group , which at the time owned " The Sunday Times " . In this role he oversaw the paper ' s worldwide network of correspondents . His contract allowed him to take three months holiday every winter in Jamaica . Fleming worked full - time for the paper until December 1959 , but continued to write articles and attend the Tuesday weekly meetings until at least 1961 . After Ann Charteris ' first husband died in the war , she expected to marry Fleming , but he decided to remain a bachelor . On 28 June 1945 , she married the second Viscount Rothermere . Nevertheless , Charteris continued her affair with Fleming , travelling to Jamaica to see him under the pretext of visiting his friend and neighbour Noël Coward . In 1948 she gave birth to Fleming ' s daughter , Mary , who was stillborn . Rothermere divorced Charteris in 1951 because of her relationship with Fleming , and the couple married on 24 March 1952 in Jamaica . Both Fleming and Ann had affairs during their marriage , she , most notably , with Hugh Gaitskell , the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition . Fleming had a long - term affair in Jamaica with one of his neighbours , Blanche Blackwell , mother of Chris Blackwell of Island Records . 1950s . Fleming had first mentioned to friends during the war that he wanted to write a spy novel , an ambition he achieved within two months with " Casino Royale " . He started writing the book at Goldeneye on 17 February 1952 , gaining inspiration from his own experiences and imagination . He claimed afterwards that he wrote the novel to distract himself from his forthcoming wedding to the pregnant Charteris , and called the work his " dreadful oafish opus " . His manuscript was typed in London by Joan Howe , ( mother of travel writer Rory MacLean ) and Fleming ' s red - haired secretary at " The Times " on whom the character Miss Moneypenny was partially based . Clare Blanchard , a former girlfriend , advised him not to publish the book , or at least to do so under a pseudonym . During " Casino Royale ' s " final draft stages , Fleming allowed his friend William Plomer to see a copy , and remarked " so far as I can see the element of suspense is completely absent " . Despite this , Plomer thought the book had sufficient promise and sent a copy to the publishing house Jonathan Cape . At first , they were unenthusiastic about the novel , but Fleming ' s brother Peter , whose books they managed , persuaded the company to publish it . On 13 April 1953 " Casino Royale " was released in the UK in hardcover , priced at 10s , 6d , with a cover designed by Fleming . It was a success and three print runs were needed to cope with the demand . The novel centres on the exploits of James Bond , an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service , commonly known as MI6 . Bond was also known by his code number , 007 , and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve . Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond , an expert on Caribbean birds and author of the definitive field guide " Birds of the West Indies " . Fleming , himself a keen birdwatcher , had a copy of Bond ' s guide , and later told the ornithologist ' s wife , " It struck me that this brief , unromantic , Anglo - Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed , and so a second James Bond was born " . In a 1962 interview in " The New Yorker " , he further explained : " When I wrote the first one in 1953 , I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull , uninteresting man to whom things happened ; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument . . . when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God , ( James Bond ) is the dullest name I ever heard . " Fleming based his creation on a number of individuals he met during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division , and admitted that Bond " was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war " . Amongst those types were his brother Peter , whom he worshipped , and who had been involved in behind - the - lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war . Fleming envisaged that Bond would resemble the composer , singer and actor Hoagy Carmichael , although others , such as author and historian Ben Macintyre , identify aspects of Fleming ' s own looks in his description of Bond . General references in the novels describe Bond as having " dark , rather cruel good looks " . Fleming also modelled aspects of Bond on Conrad O ' Brien - ffrench , a spy whom Fleming had met whilst skiing in Kitzbühel in the 1930s , Patrick Dalzel - Job , who served with distinction in 30AU during the war , and Bill " Biffy " Dunderdale , station head of MI6 in Paris , who wore cufflinks and handmade suits and was chauffeured around Paris in a Rolls - Royce . Sir Fitzroy Maclean was another possible model for Bond , based on his wartime work behind enemy lines in the Balkans , as was the MI6 double agent Dušan Popov . Fleming also endowed Bond with many of his own traits , including the same golf handicap , his taste for scrambled eggs , his love of gambling , and use of the same brand of toiletries . After the publication of " Casino Royale " , Fleming used his annual holiday at his house in Jamaica to write another Bond story . Twelve Bond novels and two short - story collections were published between 1953 and 1966 , the last two ( " The Man with the Golden Gun " and " Octopussy and The Living Daylights " ) posthumously . Much of the background to the stories came from Fleming ' s previous work in the Naval Intelligence Division or from events he knew of from the Cold War . The plot of " From Russia , with Love " uses a fictional Soviet Spektor decoding machine as a lure to trap Bond ; the Spektor had its roots in the wartime German Enigma machine . The novel ' s plot device of spies on the Orient Express was based on the story of Eugene Karp , a US naval attaché and intelligence agent based in Budapest who took the Orient Express from Budapest to Paris in February 1950 , carrying a number of papers about blown US spy networks in the Eastern Bloc . Soviet assassins already on the train drugged the conductor , and Karp ' s body was found shortly afterwards in a railway tunnel south of Salzburg . Many of the names used in the Bond works came from people Fleming knew : Scaramanga , the principal villain in " The Man with the Golden Gun " , was named after a fellow Eton schoolboy with whom Fleming fought ; Goldfinger , from the eponymous novel , was named after British architect Ernő Goldfinger , whose work Fleming abhorred ; Sir Hugo Drax , the antagonist of " Moonraker " , was named after after Fleming ' s acquaintance Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett - Ernle - Erle - Drax ; Drax ' s assistant , Krebs , bears the same name as Hitler ' s last Chief of Staff ; and one of the homosexual villains from " Diamonds Are Forever " , " Boofy " Kidd , was named after one of Fleming ' s close friends — and a relative of his wife — Arthur Gore , 8th Earl of Arran , known as Boofy to his friends . Fleming ' s first work of non - fiction , " The Diamond Smugglers " , was published in 1957 and was partly based on background research for his fourth Bond novel , " Diamonds Are Forever " . Much of the material had appeared in " The Sunday Times " and was based on Fleming ' s interviews with John Collard , a member of the International Diamond Security Organisation who had previously worked in MI5 . The book received mixed reviews in the UK and US . For the first five books ( " Casino Royale " , " Live and Let Die " , " Moonraker " , " Diamonds Are Forever " and " From Russia , with Love " ) Fleming received broadly positive reviews . That began to change in March 1958 when Bernard Bergonzi , in the journal " Twentieth Century " , attacked Fleming ' s work as containing " a strongly marked streak of voyeurism and sado - masochism " and wrote that the books showed " the total lack of any ethical frame of reference " . The article compared Fleming unfavourably with John Buchan and Raymond Chandler on both moral and literary criteria . A month later , " Dr . No " was published , and Fleming received harsh criticism from a number of reviewers who , in the words of Ben Macintyre , " rounded on Fleming , almost as a pack " . The most strongly worded of the critiques came from Paul Johnson of the " New Statesman " , who opened his review , " Sex , Snobbery and Sadism " , with : " I have just finished what is , without doubt , the nastiest book I have ever read " . Johnson went on to say that " by the time I was a third of the way through , I had to suppress a strong impulse to throw the thing away " . Although Johnson recognised that in Bond there " was a social phenomenon of some importance " , this was seen as a negative element , as the phenomenon concerned " three basic ingredients in " Dr No " , all unhealthy , all thoroughly English : the sadism of a schoolboy bully , the mechanical , two - dimensional sex - longings of a frustrated adolescent , and the crude , snob - cravings of a suburban adult . " Johnson saw no positives in " Dr . No " , and said , " Mr Fleming has no literary skill , the construction of the book is chaotic , and entire incidents and situations are inserted , and then forgotten , in a haphazard manner . " Fleming ' s biographer , Andrew Lycett , notes that Fleming " went into a personal and creative decline " after marital problems and the attacks on his work . " Goldfinger " had been written before the publication of " Dr . No " ; the next book Fleming produced after the criticism was " For Your Eyes Only " , a collection of short stories derived from outlines written for a television series which did not come to fruition . Lycett noted that , as Fleming was writing the television scripts and the short stories , " Ian ' s mood of weariness and self - doubt was beginning to affect his writing " , which can be seen in Bond ' s thoughts . 1960s . In 1960 Fleming was commissioned by the Kuwait Oil Company to write a book on the country and its oil industry . The Kuwaiti Government disapproved of the typescript , " State of Excitement : Impressions of Kuwait " , and it was never published . According to Fleming : " The Oil Company expressed approval of the book but felt it their duty to submit the typescript to members of the Kuwait Government for their approval . The Sheikhs concerned found unpalatable certain mild comments and criticisms and particularly the passages referring to the adventurous past of the country which now wishes to be ' civilised ' in every respect and forget its romantic origins . " Fleming followed the disappointment of " For Your Eyes Only " with " Thunderball " , the novelization of a film script on which he had worked with others . The work had started in 1958 when Fleming ' s friend Ivar Bryce introduced him to a young Irish writer and director , Kevin McClory , and the three , together with Fleming and Bryce ' s friend Ernest Cuneo , worked on a script . In October McClory introduced experienced screenwriter Jack Whittingham to the newly formed team , and by December 1959 McClory and Whittingham sent Fleming a script . Fleming had been having second thoughts on McClory ' s involvement and , in January 1960 , explained his intention of delivering the screenplay to MCA , with a recommendation from him and Bryce that McClory act as producer . He additionally told McClory that if MCA rejected the film because of McClory ' s involvement , then McClory should either sell himself to MCA , back out of the deal , or file a suit in court . Working at Goldeneye between January and March 1960 , Fleming wrote the novel " Thunderball " , based on the screenplay written by himself , Whittingham and McClory . In March 1961 McClory read an advance copy , and he and Whittingham immediately petitioned the High Court in London for an injunction to stop publication . After two court actions , the second in November 1961 , Fleming offered McClory a deal , settling out of court . McClory gained the literary and film rights for the screenplay , while Fleming was given the rights to the novel , provided it was acknowledged as " based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory , Jack Whittingham and the Author " . Fleming ' s books had always sold well , but in 1961 sales increased dramatically . On 17 March 1961 , four years after its publication and three years after the heavy criticism of " Dr . No " , an article in " Life Magazine " listed " From Russia , with Love " as one of US President John F . Kennedy ' s ten favourite books . Kennedy and Fleming had previously met in Washington . This accolade and the associated publicity led to a surge in sales that made Fleming the biggest - selling crime writer in the US . Fleming considered " From Russia , with Love " to be his best novel , although he admitted , " the great thing is that each one of the books seems to have been a favourite with one or other section of the public and none has yet been completely damned . " In April 1961 , shortly before the second court case on " Thunderball " , Fleming suffered a heart attack during a regular weekly meeting at " The Sunday Times " . While he was convalescing , one of his friends , Duff Dunbar , gave him a copy of Beatrix Potter ' s " The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin " and suggested that he take the time to write up the bedtime story that Fleming used to tell to his son Caspar each evening . Fleming attacked the project with gusto and wrote to his publisher , Michael Howard of Jonathan Cape , joking that " There is not a moment , even on the edge of the tomb , when I am not slaving for you " . The result was Fleming ' s only children ' s novel , " Chitty - Chitty - Bang - Bang " , which was published in October 1964 , two months after his death . In June 1961 Fleming sold a six - month option on the film rights to his published and future James Bond novels and short stories to Harry Saltzman . Saltzman formed the production vehicle Eon Productions along with Albert R . " Cubby " Broccoli , and after an extensive search , they hired Sean Connery on a five - film deal , beginning with " Dr . No " ( 1962 ) . Connery ' s depiction of Bond affected the literary character ; in " You Only Live Twice " , the first book written after " Dr . No " was released , Fleming gave Bond a sense of humour and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories . Fleming ' s second non - fiction book was published in November 1963 : " Thrilling Cities " , a reprint of a series of " Sunday Times " articles based on Fleming ' s impressions of a number of world cities in trips taken during 1959 and 1960 . Approached in 1964 by producer Norman Felton to write a spy series for television , Fleming provided a number of ideas , including the names of characters Napoleon Solo and April Dancer , for the series " The Man from U . N . C . L . E . " However , Fleming withdrew from the project following a request from Eon Productions , who were keen to avoid any legal problems that might occur if the project overlapped with the Bond films . In January 1964 Fleming went to Goldeneye for what proved to be his last holiday and wrote the first draft of " The Man with the Golden Gun " . He was dissatisfied with it and wrote to William Plomer , the copy editor of his novels , asking for it to be rewritten . Fleming became increasingly unhappy with the book and considered rewriting it , but was dissuaded by Plomer , who considered it viable for publication . Death . Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life , and suffered from heart disease . In 1961 , aged 53 , he suffered a heart attack and struggled to recuperate . On 11 August 1964 , while staying at a hotel in Canterbury , Fleming walked to the Royal St George ' s Golf Club for lunch and later dined at his hotel with friends . The day had been tiring for him , and he collapsed with another heart attack shortly after the meal . Fleming died at age 56 in the early morning of 12 August 1964 — his son Caspar ' s twelfth birthday . His last recorded words were an apology to the ambulance drivers for having inconvenienced them , saying " I am sorry to trouble you chaps . I don ' t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days . " Fleming was buried in the churchyard of Sevenhampton village , near Swindon . Fleming ' s last two books , " The Man with the Golden Gun " and " Octopussy and The Living Daylights " , were published posthumously . " The Man with the Golden Gun " was published eight months after Fleming ' s death and had not been through the full editing process by Fleming . As a result , the novel was thought by publishing company Jonathan Cape to be thin and " feeble " . The publishers had passed the manuscript to Kingsley Amis to read on holiday , although they did not use his suggestions . Fleming ' s biographer Henry Chandler observes that the novel " received polite and rather sad reviews , recognising that the book had effectively been left half - finished , and as such did not represent Fleming at the top of his game . " The final Bond book , containing two short stories , " Octopussy and The Living Daylights " , was published in Britain on 23 June 1966 . In October 1975 , Fleming ' s son Caspar , aged 23 , committed suicide by drug overdose and was buried with his father . Fleming ' s widow , Ann , died in 1981 and was buried with her husband and their son . Writing . Author Raymond Benson , who later wrote a series of Bond novels , noted that Fleming ' s books fall into two distinct periods along stylistic lines . Those books written between 1953 and 1960 tend to concentrate on " mood , character development , and plot advancement " , while those released between 1961 and 1966 incorporate more detail and imagery . Benson argues that Fleming had become " a master storyteller " by the time he wrote " Thunderball " in 1961 . Jeremy Black divides the series based on the villains Fleming created , a division supported by fellow academic Christoph Linder . Thus the early books from " Casino Royale " to " For Your Eyes Only " are classed as " Cold War stories " , with SMERSH as the antagonists , followed by Blofeld and SPECTRE as Bond ' s opponents in the three novels " Thunderball " , " On Her Majesty ' s Secret Service " and " You Only Live Twice " , after the thawing of East – West relations . Black and Linder both classify the remaining books — " The Man with the Golden Gun " , " Octopussy and The Living Daylights " and " The Spy Who Loved Me " — as " the later Fleming stories " . Style and technique . Fleming said of his work , " while thrillers may not be Literature with a capital L , it is possible to write what I can best describe as ' thrillers designed to be read as literature . He named Raymond Chandler , Dashiell Hammett , Eric Ambler and Graham Greene as influences . William Cook in the " New Statesman " considered James Bond to be " the culmination of an important but much - maligned tradition in English literature . As a boy , Fleming devoured the Bulldog Drummond tales of Lieutenant Colonel Herman Cyril McNeile ( aka " Sapper " ) and the Richard Hannay stories of John Buchan . His genius was to repackage these antiquated adventures to fit the fashion of postwar Britain . . . In Bond , he created a Bulldog Drummond for the jet age . " Umberto Eco considered Mickey Spillane to have been another major influence . In May 1963 Fleming wrote a piece for " Books and Bookmen " magazine in which he described his approach to writing Bond books : " I write for about three hours in the morning . . . and I do another hour ' s work between six and seven in the evening . I never correct anything and I never go back to see what I have written . . . By following my formula , you write 2 , 000 words a day . " Benson identified what he described as the " Fleming Sweep " , the use of " hooks " at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next . The hooks combine with what Anthony Burgess calls " a heightened journalistic style " to produce " a speed of narrative , which hustles the reader past each danger point of mockery " . Umberto Eco analysed Fleming ' s works from a Structuralist point of view , and identified a series of oppositions within the storylines that provide structure and narrative , including : Eco also noted that the Bond villains tend to come from Central Europe or from Slavic or Mediterranean countries and have a mixed heritage and " complex and obscure origins " . Eco found that the villains were generally asexual or homosexual , inventive , organisationally astute , and wealthy . Jeremy Black observed the same point : " Fleming did not use class enemies for his villains instead relying on physical distortion or ethnic identity . . . Furthermore , in Britain foreign villains used foreign servants and employees . . . This racism reflected not only a pronounced theme of interwar adventure writing , such as the novels of Buchan , but also widespread literary culture " . Writer Louise Welsh found that the novel " Live and Let Die " " taps into the paranoia that some sectors of white society were feeling " as the civil rights movements challenged prejudice and inequality . Fleming used well - known brand names and everyday details to support a sense of realism . Kingsley Amis called this " the Fleming effect " , describing it as " the imaginative use of information , whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond ' s world . . . [ is ] bolted down to some sort of reality , or at least counter - balanced . " Major themes . Britain ' s position in the world . The Bond books were written in post - war Britain , when the country was still an imperial power . As the series progressed , the British Empire was in decline ; journalist William Cook observed that " Bond pandered to Britain ' s inflated and increasingly insecure self - image , flattering us with the fantasy that Britannia could still punch above her weight . " This decline of British power was referred to in a number of the novels ; in " From Russia , with Love " , it manifested itself in Bond ' s conversations with Darko Kerim , when Bond admits that in England , " we don ' t show teeth any more — only gums . " The theme is strongest in one of the later books of the series , the 1964 novel " You Only Live Twice " , in conversations between Bond and the head of Japan ' s secret intelligence service , Tiger Tanaka . Fleming was acutely aware of the loss of British prestige in the 1950s and early 60s , particularly during the Indonesia – Malaysia confrontation , when he had Tanaka accuse Britain of throwing away the empire " with both hands " . Jeremy Black points to the defections of four members of MI6 to the Soviet Union as having a major impact on how Britain was viewed in US intelligence circles . The last of the defections was that of Kim Philby in January 1963 , while Fleming was still writing the first draft of " You Only Live Twice " . The briefing between Bond and M is the first time in the twelve books that Fleming acknowledges the defections . Black contends that the conversation between M and Bond allows Fleming to discuss the decline of Britain , with the defections and the Profumo Affair of 1963 as a backdrop . Two of the defections had taken place shortly before Fleming wrote " Casino Royale " , and Fleming ' s biographer Andrew Lycett observes that the book can be seen as the writer ' s " attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post - war world that could produce traitors like Burgess and Maclean . " By the end of the series , in the 1965 novel , " The Man with the Golden Gun " , Black notes that an independent inquiry was undertaken by the Jamaican judiciary , while the CIA and MI6 were recorded as acting " under the closest liaison and direction of the Jamaican CID " : this was the new world of a non - colonial , independent Jamaica , further underlining the decline of the British Empire . The decline was also reflected in Bond ' s use of US equipment and personnel in a number of novels . Uncertain and shifting geopolitics led Fleming to replace the Russian organisation SMERSH with the international terrorist group SPECTRE in " Thunderball " , permitting " evil unconstrained by ideology " . Black argues that SPECTRE provides a measure of continuity to the remaining stories in the series . Effects of the war . A theme throughout the series was the effect of the Second World War . " The Times " journalist Ben Macintyre considers that Bond was " the ideal antidote to Britain ' s postwar austerity , rationing and the looming premonition of lost power " , at a time when coal and many items of food were still rationed . Fleming often used the war as a signal to establish " good " or " evil " in characters : in " For Your Eyes Only " , the villain , Hammerstein , is a former Gestapo officer , while the sympathetic Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer , Colonel Johns , served with the British under Montgomery in the Eighth Army . Similarly , in " Moonraker " , Drax ( Graf Hugo von der Drache ) is a " megalomaniac German Nazi who masquerades as an English gentleman " , and his assistant , Krebbs , bears the same name as Hitler ' s last Chief of Staff . In this , Fleming " exploits another British cultural antipathy of the 1950s . Germans , in the wake of the Second World War , made another easy and obvious target for bad press . " As the series progressed , the threat of a re - emergent Germany was overtaken by concerns about the Cold War , and the novels changed their focus accordingly . Comradeship . Periodically in the series , the topic of comradeship or friendship arises , with a male ally who works with Bond on his mission . Raymond Benson believes that the relationships Bond has with his allies " add another dimension to Bond ' s character , and ultimately , to the thematic continuity of the novels " . In " Live and Let Die " , agents Quarrel and Leiter represent the importance of male friends and allies , seen especially in Bond ' s response to the shark attack on Leiter ; Benson observes that " the loyalty Bond feels towards his friends is as strong as his commitment to his job " . In " Dr . No " , Quarrel is " an indispensable ally " . Benson sees no evidence of discrimination in their relationship and notes Bond ' s genuine remorse and sadness at Quarrel ' s death . The " traitor within " . From the opening novel in the series , the theme of treachery was strong . Bond ' s target in " Casino Royale " , Le Chiffre , was the paymaster of a French communist trade union , and the overtones of a fifth column struck a chord with the largely British readership , as Communist influence in the trade unions had been an issue in the press and parliament , especially after the defections of Burgess and Maclean in 1951 . The " traitor within " theme continued in " Live and Let Die " and " Moonraker " . Good versus evil . Raymond Benson considered the most obvious theme of the series to be good versus evil . This crystallised in " Goldfinger " with the Saint George motif , which is stated explicitly in the book : " Bond sighed wearily . Once more into the breach , dear friend ! This time it really was St George and the dragon . And St George had better get a move on and do something " . Jeremy Black notes that the image of the " latter - day St . George , . . . [ is ] an English , rather than British image . " Anglo - American relations . The Bond novels also dealt with the question of Anglo - American relations , reflecting the central role of the US in the defence of the West . In the aftermath of the Second World War , tensions surfaced between a British government trying to retain its empire and the American desire for a capitalist new world order , but Fleming did not focus on this directly , instead creating " an impression of the normality of British imperial rule and action " . Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens observed that " the central paradox of the classic Bond stories is that , although superficially devoted to the Anglo - American war against communism , they are full of contempt and resentment for America and Americans " . Although Fleming was aware of this tension between the two countries , he did not focus on it strongly . Kingsley Amis , in his exploration of Bond in " The James Bond Dossier " , pointed out that " Leiter , such a nonentity as a piece of characterization . . . he , the American , takes orders from Bond , the Britisher , and that Bond is constantly doing better than he " . For three of the novels , " Goldfinger " , " Live and Let Die " and " Dr . No " , it is Bond the British agent who has to sort out what turns out to be an American problem , and Jeremy Black points out that although it is American assets that are under threat in " Dr . No " , a British agent and a British warship , HMS " Narvick " , are sent with British soldiers to the island at the end of the novel to settle the matter . Fleming became increasingly jaundiced about America , and his comments in the penultimate novel " You Only Live Twice " reflect this ; Bond ' s responses to Tanaka ' s comments reflect the declining relationship between Britain and America — in sharp contrast to the warm , co - operative relationship between Bond and Leiter in the earlier books . Legacy . In the late 1950s the author Geoffrey Jenkins had suggested to Fleming that he write a Bond novel set in South Africa , and sent him his own idea for a plot outline which , according to Jenkins , Fleming felt had great potential . After Fleming ' s death , Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to write a Bond novel , " Per Fine Ounce " , but it was never published . Starting with Kingsley Amis ' " Colonel Sun " , under the pseudonym " Robert Markham " in 1968 , several authors have been commissioned to write Bond novels , including Sebastian Faulks , who was asked by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel in observance of what would have been Fleming ' s 100th birthday in 2008 . During his lifetime Fleming sold thirty million books ; double that number were sold in the two years following his death . In 2008 " The Times " ranked Fleming fourteenth on its list of " The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 " . In 2002 Ian Fleming Publications announced the launch of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award , presented by the Crime Writers ' Association to the best thriller , adventure or spy novel originally published in the UK . The Eon Productions series of Bond films , which started in 1962 with " Dr . No " , continued after Fleming ' s death . Along with two non - Eon produced films , there have been twenty - three Eon films , with the most recent , " Skyfall " , released in October 2012 . The Eon Productions series has grossed $ 4 , 910 , 000 , 000 ( over $ 12 , 360 , 000 , 000 when adjusted for inflation ) worldwide , making it the second highest grossing film series , behind " Harry Potter " . The influence of Bond in the cinema and in literature is evident in films and books as diverse as the " Austin Powers " series , " Carry On Spying " and the Jason Bourne character . In 2011 Fleming became the first English - language writer to have an international airport named after him : Ian Fleming International Airport , near Oracabessa , Jamaica , was officially opened on 12 January 2011 by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Fleming ' s niece , Lucy . Notes and references . Notes References