Abstract Page
Abstract Page
Bond's Creator The New Yorker, April 21, 1962 P. 32

Talk interview with Ian Fleming, a 53-year-old Scot, whose 9 Secret Service thrillers have had phenomenal sales in this country & abroad (more than 1,100,000 hardcover copies & 3,500,000 paperbacks). He wrote the first James Bond thriller in 1953. One of the bibles of his youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, an ornithologist, & when looking for a dull name for his protagonist he remembered this as the dullest of names. A graduate of Eton & Sandhurst, Ian Fleming went to Universities of Geneva & Munich. In 1929 he became a foreign correspondent for Reuters. He stayed with Reuters for 4 years spending some time in Moxcow. He spent 6 years in the banking & stock-brokerage business--1st with Cull & Co. & then with Rowe & Pitman. During the war he was the personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. He emerged a naval commander. After the war he joined the editorial board of the London Times. He still writes for it, & he is a stockholder. He believes that the reason for his success with the James Bond thrillers is that the people are lacking in heroes in real live today.

Sign up for the daily newsletter.Sign up for the daily newsletter: the best of The New Yorker every day.

Geoffrey T. Hellman 

&
Subscribe to The New Yorker