Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was born in London on 28 May 1908. He was educated at Eton and later spent a formative period in Kitzbuhel, Austria, where he studied languages ( and made his first, tentative forays into fiction writing). In the 1930s he embarked on a career as a journalist with Reuters news agency. This was followed by a short and unsuccessful period in the City of London.

He served throughout the Second World War as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, where his fertile imagination spawned a variety of covert operations, all of them notable for their daring and ingenuity. Although only an assistant, he was by virtue of that role, at the centre of wartime intelligence and the knowledge that he gained and about which he was under oath not to reveal, informed much of his later writing about James Bond.

After the war he worked as foreign manager of the Sunday Times, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home ‘Goldeneye’, he wrote the first Bond novel Casino Royale which was published to immediate acclaim.

Every year for the next twelve years. Fleming produced a new adventure featuring agent 007, one of the most famous literary characters of the century. He also found time to write two non-fiction books: The Diamond Smugglers, Thrilling Cities as well as Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, a much-loved children’s story about a magical car that flies.

He lived to see the first two Bond films, Dr No and From Russia with Love. He died in 1964 aged fifty-six of a heart attack, having lived life fast and to the full. His influence has been profound, leading to the astonishingly successful Bond film franchise – 23 films to date – and giving rise to many imitators in the thriller writing genre, as well as making the names of his characters, not only James Bond but also the villains he contends with, known the world over.

For more information on Ian Fleming visit www.ianfleming.com

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Above: Portrait of Ian Fleming by Cecil Beaton, 1962.