Ian Fleming
The Complete Man
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- €13.99
Publisher Description
A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers.
*WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION*
Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture, but Fleming’s life was more mysterious than anything he wrote.
Ian’s childhood with his gifted brother and extraordinary mother established his ambition to be ‘the complete man’. Only a writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal experiences and career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction.
Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering new material that casts fresh light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography.
‘Elegant and painstakingly researched’ Observer
‘Marvellous…one of the most engaging portraits of a particular period of British history that I have read in a long time’ Antonia Fraser
‘A book so buoyant and delicious that you feel it will be a friend for life' Telegraph
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD*
*A The Times, Financial Times, Economist, Spectator and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Shakespeare (The Dancer Upstairs) delivers an exemplary biography of British spy novelist Ian Fleming (1908–1964). The scion of a wealthy banking family, Fleming was an indifferent student and at age 23 flunked the Foreign Office exam, after which he became a Reuters correspondent. After WWII began, Fleming used his contacts to join the Naval Intelligence Division as a lieutenant commander. Though Fleming's war service remains shrouded in mystery, Shakespeare builds a strong case that the novelist authored the memo that inspired operation Mincemeat, which fed the Axis powers bogus plans to distract from the upcoming Allied invasion of Sicily. After the war, Fleming became a Sunday Times editor, and in 1952, he wrote the spy thriller Casino Royale. The book's suave protagonist, James Bond, eclipsed Fleming's own fame after his death by heart attack at age 56. Shakespeare offers shrewd insight into the enduring appeal of Bond ("The lower the sun has sunk on the empire that Bond was born into, the more radiant his glow") and how Fleming's personal life shaped 007, suggesting the character reflects the heroism of Fleming's father, a major who died in WWI, as well as Fleming's own "cavalier treatment of women" (Fleming had many affairs during his fractious marriage to Ann Charteris). This will stand as the definitive biography of the popular author.
