FOR YOUR SHELF ONLY: DAVID FOSTER

For Your Shelf Only continues! Spy Vibe recently talked with Jon Gilbert, rare book dealer and author of Ian Fleming: The Bibliography. Our chat began a new series on Spy Vibe, offering fellow collectors and fans of spy novels a chance to share their experiences and some of their prized books. 

Our next guest is fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. agent, David Foster. Australian author, David James Foster writes under the pen name James Hopwood. He has contributed to Crime Factory Magazine (Vol. 10), Matt Hilton's ACTION: Pulse Pound Tales, and writing as Jack Tunney, wrote King of the Outback - the sixth title in the popular Fight Card series. He can be found at the blog: Permission To Kill. More info at his author page on Amazon. 

Many of us grew up reading and collecting spy fiction. At what age did you start to collect books?

G'day Jason, and thank you for inviting me back to Spy Vibe.  I started collecting books pretty early. I was lucky, as my Aunt ran a second hand bookshop. The first books I collected were Charlie Brown books, which were paperbacks with the Charles M. Schultz Peanuts comic strip in them. I thought they were brilliant, especially the ones featuring Snoopy as a WWI flying ace. I must have only been seven or eight at the time. 

However, by the time I was nine, a new star had appeared on my horizon. That was James Bond. It was the film, The Spy Who Loved Me, that set me on my quest of collecting spy books. The first Bond book I owned was The Man With The Golden Gun, and the copy I acquired had a picture of Roger Moore on the cover. I read it, but must admit, I didn't really get it. It wasn't like the filmic incarnation of Bond. However, with my Aunt's help, I persevered, collecting the whole series. And the more I read, and the older I got, the stories began to click.

What books did you seek out and what was it about them that captivated you?

Most of the Bond books I had were the '60s Pan editions, so the cover art wasn't great – not like the hardbacks and the '50s paperbacks. But even without wild lurid illustrations on the covers I was still very drawn to the series. And this may sound strange, one of the things I really loved were the adverts at the back for other books series – such as the Travis McGee, Modesty Blaise and Charles Hood stories. Back then, I never could find any McGee or Hood books, but I knew they were out there – all part of this cool, hidden, man's book thing. As a kid, I thought that's what a real man did, read Travis McGee books!

The adverts read:

John D. MacDonald

'The tough, amoral and action crammed stories of the popular Travis McGee as he tangles with passionate women and violent men to uncover blackmail and corruption from California to Mexico.'

James Mayo

'A telepathic nymphomaniac twin possessing one half of a vital formula... a vulture trained to eat living prey... a gunfight amongst priceless antiques – another thrill packed Hood assignment.'

Adam Diment

'Demon driver. Ace pilot. Crack shot, and a knockout with the girls?

Yes, you've got it in one. PHILIP McALPINE – That Dolly Dolly Spy man – the last word in British sex-mad cad agents, is back with his second adventure.'

I could go on and on. Each of these teasers hinted at a world, which was far more exciting than anything I experienced growing up in rural Australia. I wanted that world – and the only way I could get it, was through books.

Of course my collection isn't limited to Bond or even spy books, I'll pick up anything. I have Peter Corris, Clive Cussler, Len Deighton, John LeCarre, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, Alistair McLean, Clive Eggleton, Desmond Bagley, Adam Hall, Peter O'Donnell, Andy McNabb, James Rollins and many, many more. The sad truth is, I have so many books now, even if I didn't buy any more, I would never get around to reading them all – and, of course, almost weekly, new books come into my life. 

Do you have a book or two in your collection that you prize above all others?

My Holy Grails would be First Edition Hardbacks of Ian Fleming's Bond stories, however with my meager budget, I realize these are well out of reach. But I do have a couple of items in my collection I am pretty proud of. The first is a First Edition of Modesty Blaise – with the pink dustjacket – not price clipped. And possibly the most sought after is, the unsanctioned Bond novel, Avakoum Zahov versus 07, which was a novel written by Bulgarian, Andrei Gulyaski.

It is often erroneously assumed that The Zakhov Mission is the English translation of Avakoum Zahov versus 07. Much of the misinformation can be attributed to Donald McCormick’s book Who’s Who in Spy Fiction (Elm Tree Books 1977. p93), which suggested The Zakhov Mission was serialised as Avakoum Zahov versus 07 in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Charles Helfenstein was the first to attempt to clear up some of the confusion about Gulyashki and Zahov in the debut issue of his fan magazine, Spies: The Secret Agent's Magazine in 1992. In issue 2 (Oct 92) he even reprinted a 1967 interview with Gulyashki, complete with a picture of him. Once the truth was out there, it was much easier to attempt to locate a copy (although I must admit it was still sheer luck that I found it).

Now why is the English version of Avakoum Zahov versus 07 of any interest? Firstly, we are talking mid sixties. Ian Fleming had died and Kingsley Amis hadn’t yet written his Bond continuation novel Colonel Sun. So there was a gap to fill. Apparently Andrei Gulyashki approached Glidrose (now Ian Fleming Publications) and told them that he had written a ‘new’ James Bond novel. Glidrose weren’t interested. Gulyashki decided to publish his Bond book anyway and was quite vocal in his quest to do so – so much so, that the press dubbed him ‘The Vulgar Bulgar’. So this is his renegade Bond novel.

The second reason why the book is of interest is that it has become quite rare. In the Titan comic strip edition of Goldfinger, there is an article by Vladislav Pavlov (Goldfinger: Behind Enemy Lines: A Foreign Perspective. Titan Books 2007). This is what he briefly has to say about ‘Avakoum Zahov versus 07’.

‘...Bulgarian writer Andrei Gulyashki (known for his series about the Bulgarian secret agent Avakoum Zakhov) announced his intention to write a novel in which his hero would be fighting the notorious 007. (Behind the Iron Curtain, the notion of copyright has always been a bit vague, to put it mildly). When it became known to the proprietors of the literary Bond franchise (Glidrose) they naturally banned Gulyashki from using either the number 007 or the name James Bond. As a result, the name of the villain disappeared and the number 007 was shortened to 07, the British agent acting in Bulgaria under the control of the NATO intelligence division.

In his book Gulyashki did all he could to defame the character, picturing him as mean and stupid, substituting, in a way, the role of 07 for the Russian SMERSH leaders described by Fleming in From Russia With Love. There was, however, one notable exception: whilst Fleming, describing the villains in such a grotesque way, was only pulling the reader's leg, Gulyashki's villain, created for the benefit of Soviet propaganda, looks infinitely dull and serious. The book has been rumoured to have been published in English, and is even considered a kind of Holy Grail amongst some Bond collectors for its extreme rarity. However, few people realise that the carpenter's cup can't be made of gold.

Avakoum Zahov versus 07 was only published in English by an Australian publisher called Scripts. Scripts were allegedly an offshoot of Horwitz Books, that specialised in saucy ‘Adult’ fiction. But before we go any further, let me assure you that despite being published under the ‘Scripts’ flag, this book is in no way pornographic in nature. 

What are you collecting now? 

The books I am hunting for these days are essentially Australian pulp fiction from the '50s, '60s and '70s. Australia used to have a huge pulp adventure fiction output, which is criminally ignored these days. I am not for one minute claiming it was all great literature, but even bad books, tell you something about the time and place they were written – and therefore have a worth.

Thanks again to David for joining us and sharing his love of collecting books and tracking down cool stories. Scroll down for past editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. Series links: Jon Gilbert, Raymond Benson, Jeremy Duns, Peter Lorenz, Rob Mallows, Roger Langley, Craig Arthur, Fleming Short, Matt Sherman. You can find cold war thrillers and other spy treasures in Spy Vibe's secure Amazon Store. 

Stay tuned for another edition of For Your Shelf Only. Check out Spy Vibe's classic 2009 article, Set For Adventure, where we joined forces with Lee Pfeiffer, Jeremy Duns, Stephen Bissette, and others to look at the best set designs from spy entertainment. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton. 

GERRY ANDERSON ANNOUNCES HEALTH NEWS

The creator of Thunderbirds, UFO, and Captain Scarlet, Gerry Anderson, has revealed that he has Alzheimer's Disease. Although the condition was diagnosed 18 months ago, Anderson brought it to public attention when he announced that he and his son, Jamie, plan to participate in a Memory Walk benefit this October. Anderson is the genius behind Century 21, a company dedicated to making thrilling mystery/adventure and Sci Fi shows that appealed to kids and adults. With his innovative use of Supermarionation and miniatures, Anderson's shows inspired generations of filmmakers- including Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit. Anderson's work continues to be released and enjoyed by collectors and new fans. Recent releases include: Space 1999 Blu-ray, The Investigator (unreleased 1973 show), and a feature film based on UFO (in production). Spy Vibe wishes all the best to Gerry and his family as they deal with this difficult condition. More information at BBC News and the Fanderson website. Spy Vibe's review of the James Bond-inspired Thunderbirds episode, License to Kill Puppets. Captain Scarlet was #9 in our Set Countdown in Set For Adventure.

FOR YOUR SHELF ONLY: PETER LORENZ

For Your Shelf Only continues! Spy Vibe recently talked with Jon Gilbert, rare book dealer and author of Ian Fleming: The Bibliography. Our chat began a new series on Spy Vibe, offering fellow collectors and fans of spy novels a chance to share their experiences and some of their prized books. 

Our next guest is fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. agent, Peter Lorenz. Peter is a long time Bond collector specializing in James Bond artwork and books. He works as a Creative Director for a games company and lives in Cambridge, UK with his wife. In his spare time he spends "way too much time and money" on his 007 collection, on painting reproductions of McGinnis and McCarthy artwork, and on his blog Illustrated 007.

Many of us grew up reading and collecting spy fiction. At what age did you start to collect 007?

I started when I was 10 years old. I had just seen The Spy Who Loved Me in the cinema and became fascinated with Bond. I was living in Germany at the time and looked for the original books, which were published by Scherz Publishers in the German language. The books featured mainly photo covers that were not related to the movies, but I still chased after them at flea markets and second hand bookshops. The budget of a 10-year old did not allow me to buy new ones.

What books did you seek out and what was it about them that captivated you?

I've looked for all the Bond books I could get my hands on. The German ones were OK, but I envied the covers of the British paperbacks, especially the painted ones. Back then there was no Internet or eBay, so I saved my money and flew over to London. The second hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road were a great source for used books, and so were the Oxfam Charity shops. I spent days going from one shop to another -all over London- and browsed through the shelves. Slowly my collection grew. The Raymond Hawkey Pan covers were the most common. But sometimes I was lucky and got hold of earlier versions with covers by Sam Peffer or Rex Archer.

Have you travelled to other countries besides England and Germany to find Bond material?

My search for Bond memorabilia and artwork has taken me all over Europe and the US. Before the internet and eBay, the best chance of finding material was through other fans and traveling. I started with the UK, which had a much richer book and movie shop culture back then. Italy was next. The Bond movies were shown consistently in Italy and the posters, especially the insert-style locandia posters, were simply glued to external walls on buildings. I actually spent a whole evening with a spray bottle of water "removing" a reissued Goldfinger poster from a wall in Siena - hiding every time a car came around the corner. Paris was a good source for material as well. I have fond memories of a small movie shop near the Place de la Concorde that sold French and Belgian posters. I only wish that I'd had more money then. Spain, Belgium, Denmark and the US followed, and I always returned with one or more pieces for my collection.

Do you have favorite 007 cover designs?

The early Pan paperback covers are my favourite, as they show interpretations of the Bond characters from different angles. The first edition of Casino Royale shows a blond bond; Live and Let Die is more truthful to the character in the books.

Do you have a book or two in your collection that you prize above all others?

There are two books that I cherish: How 007 Got His Name  -I found this in a small second-hand bookshop in Blackheath, London in 1992. I was so thrilled finding it because I've never seen it before and it was only 12 GBP then.

The other one was a first edition, second impression of Casino Royale by Jonathan Cape. It came up in an auction at Bonham's. My wife and I went to the auction at Bonham's off Regent street in London around 2005. The book was estimated to fetch 250 GBP and I was getting quite nervous when the bidding reached GBP 280 -and still I went up with bidders in the room and on the phone. Luckily, I made it for GBP 300. This purchase also completed my (almost) first edition set on Ian Fleming Bond books.

What are you collecting now? What are the holy grails you still search for?

Fortunately or unfortunately, I've collected most of the published Bond books that I'm aware of - and that I like- so I’m now focusing on James Bond artwork, mostly reproductions. My blog, Illustrated 007, tells the rest. Here are some of my Bond books.

You have been painting some beautiful reproductions of many famous Bond illustrations. When did you get interested in studying Bond artwork so directly through painting?

Thank you for the compliment! I guess there is a point in a collector’s life when one has all the posters one wants and begins looking for more. I have always admired the artwork of the early Bond posters and wanted to study the originals. This was also inspired by my long-time collector friend, Thomas Nixdorf, who has an amazing collection of originals. I realized quickly that most originals were out of my financial league, so I decided to paint copies for myself. Initially I thought this wouldn't be too hard for me as a trained designer who studied art - I just had to copy what was there. I was very wrong. My first piece was the standing Connery from Thunderball and it looked plain awful - but I didn't give up. I must have painted the same piece about 20 times before I got it right(ish). The whole process taught me a lot about how the likes of McGinnis and McCarthy worked: The use of the brush, layering, colour combinations, etc. It's fascinating to study details of an original that are lost in the reproduction.

Have you been able to correspond with any of the Bond illustrators to learn about their approach and career history?

I've had the pleasure of corresponding with several Bond artists such as McGinnis, Obrero and Jung. They are all very friendly and helpful. An especially nice encounter was with Brian Sanders who painted the artwork below. I found an illustration of his in the blog, todaysinspiration.blogspot.co.uk, and contacted Brian. Turned out that he lives 10 miles from me, and we now meet regularly for dinner. It is fascinating to learn from him how the world of illustration worked in the 60's and how it has changed since then.

Tell us more about the art that attracts you. Do you look for specifics re: artist, medium, story, publication, era, or just any production art in general?

I've always been keen on pulp-style art - men with guns, action, beautiful women and exotic locations all rolled into one piece of art. Consequently I focus on illustrated and painted artwork mainly from the 50' and 60'. I simply love the variety of art created for one movie depending on country and artist. I'm also very fond of early newspaper comic strip illustrations, such as the work of John McLusky.  He translated the written Bond into a clean and elegant style that is very much Bond for me.

Do you display the art in your lair?

Some of it. English houses tend to be modest in size so I can't display as much as I like. For my work area I decided to focus on the Thunderball campaign. The paintings in the window [below] are usually in a display folder. 

I think we all picture Bond in our heads when we read Ian Fleming. Have you ever painted your own version of how Bond looks to you? 

Not yet, but it's in the pipeline. I intend to base it on Charles Dance, who portrayed Ian Fleming in the TV biopic Goldeneye. However I'm working on a painted version of Craig for Skyfall right now. Photographic posters are fine but I dearly miss the painted style of the old films. Let's see how this one turns out. It's still a work in progress.

Thanks again to Peter for joining us and sharing his love of collecting and reproducing James Bond art. Scroll down for past editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. Series links: Jon Gilbert, Raymond Benson, Jeremy Duns, Peter Lorenz, David Foster, Rob Mallows, Roger Langley, Craig Arthur, Fleming Short, Matt Sherman. You can find cold war design books and other spy treasures in Spy Vibe's secure Amazon Store. 


Stay tuned for another edition of For Your Shelf Only. Check out Spy Vibe's classic 2009 article, Set For Adventure, where we joined forces with Lee Pfeiffer, Jeremy Duns, Stephen Bissette, and others to look at the best set designs from spy entertainment. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton. 

ROGER MOORE IN PERSON

In celebration of the release of his new book, Bond On Bond, Sir Roger Moore (The Saint, The Persuaders, James Bond) will be chatting with Gareth Owen at a number of October dates in England. Don't miss this chance to see one of the greatest Spy Vibe icons in person. Signed copies of Bond On Bond are available for reservation at Bond Stars.

From the official event website: "Sir Roger Moore, the legendary film star who played the iconic role of James Bond, is to play a series of exclusive dates at theatres around the UK, opening at the Malvern Theatre on Sunday 7 October.

On the release of his new book Bond On Bond, Roger will be discussing his astonishing life and career, with inside stories and unheard anecdotes ranging from his internationally-renowned TV series The Saint and The Persuaders, through to Hollywood blockbusters and, of course, the 007 films, in which he starred as James Bond between 1973 and 1985.

Gareth Owen will interview Roger. Gareth is an author of nine books and has worked with Roger Moore on his autobiography My Word Is My Bond and his new book Bond On Bond. Gareth has interviewed Roger previously at the BFI Southbank, the Barbican Centre and at various UNICEF fundraisers throughout Europe. An Evening with Sir Roger Moore will be followed by an audience Q&A."

FOR YOUR SHELF ONLY: COLLECTING 007

We have been talking with Spy Vibers about their experiences growing up reading and collecting spy thrillers and other memorabilia. Most of us started in the old days before the Internet, trolling used book shops and flea markets. But where to find the treasures these days? You might not know that the premiere James Bond publication, 007 Magazine, also has an on-line shop with a lot of rare and autographed items. You can find everything from First Edition Bond novels to signatures by the likes of Desmond "Q" Llewelyn and Dame Diana Rigg. They also offer posters of rare movie stills and portraits. Check out the Sales Area on the 007 Magazine website for details. While you are visiting their lair, check out the amazing back issues for sale and on-line subscriptions. They even have an issue that spotlights designer Raymond Hawkey, who has been coming up often in our For Your Shelf Only series.

Spy Vibers with deep pockets will also want to check out the current entertainment auction at Bonhams. A quick search for "James Bond" yielded movie props, posters, and this lovely Golden Gun replica signed by Roger Moore. Auction ends July 3rd.

Scroll down for new editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.

007 LA TIMES

The LA Times is running a series of Bond at 50 articles that are worth checking out. While the detailed movie summaries will be familiar to most, they also include excerpts from the original Fleming stories as well as excepts from interviews with 007 actors found in the new James Bond Unmasked book. Here is the Part One introduction and today's post entitled The Sadist Who Loved Me.

Scroll down for new editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.

SPY GAMES

Agent Kimberly Lindbergs (Cinebeats, Movie Morlocks) has created a series called SPY GAMES, where she is spotlighting various espionage movies. You'll see a review of Matchless, a Eurospy film I recently caught on Netflix and really enjoyed. Anything that involves an invisible secret agent- and an eccentric villain who is waited on by robot servants- has to be good! Today she added a digest of some of the cool events and products rolling out for the 50th anniversary of the James Bond movies. Sneak on over and take a look!

Scroll down for new editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.

BARBARELLA EVENT

Your summer fling continues with the lovely Barbarella on the big screen! The Castro Theater will project Vadim's classic tomorrow at 3:05 and 7:00 (double feature with Cherry 2000) in glorious 35mm. Although the film suffers from stagey direction and static pacing, the Paco Rabbane influenced costumes (and Fonda's title sequence) are worth the price of admission. I suggest that Spy Vibers make their own triple feature with Roman Coppola's CQ and the remastered David Holzman's Diary. You'll see the connections. 1968 was also the year of Danger Diabolik, Yellow Submarine, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bullitt, Planet of the Apes, Night of the Living Dead, The Green Berets, Petulia, Candy, and The Thomas Crown Affair. Think there was something in the water? See Spy Vibe's review of the 1968 Exhibit at the Oakland Museum here. 

From the Castro: "Director Roger Vadim and star Jane Fonda bring the popular French comic strip character to the big screen in this delightfully colorful sci-fi camp classic. The voluptuous 41st-century outer space agent travels to another galaxy in search of a missing inventor named Durand Durand. Moving from one exotic locale to the next, outfitted in an array of stunning outfits, she embarks on a series of interstellar sexcapades. John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, David Hemmings, Ugo Tognazzi and Milo O'Shea co-star. (1968, 98 min, 35mm 'Scope)."

Scroll down for new editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.

SUMMER FLING

Looking for a good summer fling? Boy, it's time to re-visit Elio Petri's fantastic The 10th Victim (1965) with Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni. Spy Vibe made the posters/stills gallery feature on the new Blu-ray edition from Blue Underground- now only $17.49 at Amazon (and in our secure Amazon Store). Yes, the ending falls into the common mid-60s trap of madcap farce, but everything before that is pure Pop Art heaven. Where else can you see space-age fashion ala Courreges, assassins, gadgets, futuristic Mod architecture and set design, and Op Art? Just imagine a Steranko cover set to groovy Italian soundtrack music. The image below is from a scene that really benefits from the hi-def treatment- Enjoy!

Scroll down for new editions of our series, For Your Shelf Only, where guests share stories about collecting and show us some of their treasures. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.

FOR YOUR SHELF ONLY: JEREMY DUNS

For Your Shelf Only continues! Spy Vibe recently talked with Jon Gilbert, rare book dealer and author of Ian Fleming: The Bibliography. Our chat began a new series on Spy Vibe, offering fellow collectors and fans of spy novels a chance to share their experiences and some of their prized books. 

Our next guest is Jeremy Duns, author of the successful Paul Dark trilogy of spy thrillers. He has also contributed as a journalist to The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian,The Independent, Time Out, Mojo and other major publications. Jeremy represents a different kind of collector in this series. Although many of us write fiction and non-fiction inspired by Ian Fleming and other heroes, Jeremy's boyhood love of reading is at the heart of what he seeks as an adult. His passion as a journalist and researcher has sent him on rather collector-like adventures to hunt down rare information and materials. Obscure articles and journalism by Ian Fleming- not first edition books- are his holy grails.

Many of us grew up on spy thrillers by Ian Fleming and other writers. At what age did you start reading spy stories? What books did you seek out and what was it about them that captivated you?

It’s nice of you to ask me questions about this, Jason, because although I have a very large collection of thrillers I’ve never been a book collector in the traditional sense, looking for first editions or that sort of thing. I am fascinated by book design and love a lot of jacket artwork from the Sixties in particular. I like scrolling through collector Nick Jones’ Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s gallery, for example, but most of the thrillers I own are primarily for reading purposes, and are usually just dusty paperbacks I’ve found going cheap trawling second-hand bookshops.

I was a fan of the Bond films as a kid, like most English boys perhaps, and I think I was 14 when I received a copy of a John Gardner Bond novel for my birthday. I came to Ian Fleming’s writing a lot later, having initially bought into all that claptrap about Bond being a psychopathic imperialist misogynist, but several years ago I read the whole series and realized I’d gone into the few I’d read previously with entirely the wrong frame of mind. Fleming’s novels are largely meant to be fun adventure stories, and if you approach them from that angle rather than comparing him to John le Carré or other writers he has little in common with, they are much more rewarding. That said, I think some of his work does have a different complexion. The Living Daylights is a rather bleak pre-Berlin Wall story, for example. 

I think there’s a lot of snobbery about Fleming, especially in Britain, and it stems largely from the fact that the films have been so successful for so long – nothing that popular, some people think, can be any good. It’s such a prevalent view that it’s easy to get sucked into it. I often find the people who are most vocal about Fleming’s weaknesses have read very little of his work. What captivated me about the books was Fleming’s prose style, which is extremely vivid and often packed with fascinating information. I think the Bond books have also been much more influential than generally considered. They’ve certainly been a major inspiration for my own spy novels. It’s often been commented on that Frederick Forsyth writes thrillers as though they are journalistic investigations, but if you read, for example, the account of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.’s meeting in Thunderball, you’ll see very much the same tone as Forsyth used in The Day of The Jackal, and which has been used in hundreds of thrillers since Fleming.

Do you have favorite 007 cover designs?

Richard Chopping and Raymond Hawkey’s are great, but I also love those ones done for Bantam in the US in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Bond looks very cruel in those, even more than he is in the books, but that set is just stunning. Peter Lorenz’s excellent site Illustrated 007 tells me that Frank McCarthy was the artist. I think the Bond covers have also been extraordinarily influential on the genre, incidentally – I’ve got lots of thrillers that follow the Chopping still-life model, for example, and they immediately signal danger and excitement.

Do you have a book or two in your collection that you prize above all others? 

I don’t think I have any particularly rare Bond books, but I have a few unusual bits and pieces, from the Sixties in particular. So I have copies of film scripts for The Diamond Smugglers and Casino Royale from then, as well as a few draft pages of the lost Bond novel Per Fine Ounce by Geoffrey Jenkins (the originals of all of these are in museums). I have a book on SMERSH I think Fleming used when researching Casino Royale, copies of some of Kingsley Amis’ papers about Fleming, and several books and magazines that have essays either by Fleming or about him, such as The London Magazine, The Twentieth Century and Encounter, Cyril Connolly's journalism, Seven Deadly Sins, The Kemsley Manual for Journalism - that sort of thing.

I also love Fleming's descriptions and details. Do you detect a similar tone of voice in his journalism?

Yes, there's often that mischievous feel to his journalism, like a wicked uncle telling you a story, especially in the Atticus columns and Thrilling Cities. Fleming had an eye for the telling detail, and his novels are packed with factual information he had discovered for articles or via journalistic contacts. His prose was very varied as a result, I think, because there's material about so many topics from so many sources. In researching the attempts to film The Diamond Smugglers, I was fascinated to read the original manuscript of the book by John Collard, who Fleming transformed into John Blaize when he got his hands on it. I'd previously presumed that Fleming had heightened some of Collard's material to make incidents more exciting, but he didn't, really. A surprising amount of the original manuscript made it into the finished book untouched, but it was nevertheless a judicious editing job, with a few relatively simple changes making an enormous difference to readability. He did the very clever thing of reframing some of the book as himself going out to Tangier to find Collard and interview him. This allowed him to break up a lot of the exposition and made the book into more of a quest, a device John Pearson later used for his fictional biography of Bond. But it was a literary device rather than a journalistic one. Almost everything Collard says in the interview segments with Fleming were in Collard's original manuscript, which Fleming had already read back in his office in London. I've no doubt he met and interviewed Collard, but the way it is presented in the book is not a wholly faithful portrait of their meetings but rather a way to enliven the existing material. I think Fleming had long been a would-be novelist working as a journalist, and when he finally turned to writing fiction he used a lot of the techniques he had learned as a journalist to provide a coating of authenticity and authority. But I feel he was much more naturally suited to fiction than journalism.

Is there a Fleming story that you find yourself reading again and again more than others?

I find Octopussy fascinating, and was interested to read Nicholas Rankin's interpretation of it in his recent book Ian Fleming's Commandos, in which he speculated that the story is in part a self-portrait, with each novel representing a bar of looted gold. This is something I've felt for a while, and I find the story deeply resonant - if you read Andrew Lycett or John Pearson's excellent biographies of Fleming and then read that story, I think it's hard not to be moved by it. I also love The Living Daylights, which I think is a terrific piece of writing that brings the Cold War to life. I don't tend to reread the novels very often, but my copies of Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service are probably the most dog-eared in my collection. [Volume below available at James Bond First Editions]

What are you collecting now? What are the holy grails you still search for?

Well, it would be wonderful to find the rest of Per Fine Ounce, of course, but I’m not looking for it. I looked about as extensively as I could, I think. I’m interested in a report that Fleming himself wrote a screenplay of Casino Royale, and in fact there’s a lot of material about Casino Royale that hasn’t really been looked at, so perhaps at some point I’ll do that. I’ve written rather a lot about Ben Hecht’s drafts that I haven’t yet published. Fleming also apparently wrote scripts or treatments for Moonraker and The Diamond Smugglers, which have never come to light, and they would obviously be fascinating to read. I would love to have a complete collection of Fleming’s journalism one day. I subscribe to The Times’ archive, which is superb, but The Sunday Times’ archive is only available to institutions, which I think is a great shame: the Atticus columns alone would, I suspect, offer a lot of insight into Fleming’s work, and could significantly change scholarship about it. Perhaps Jon Gilbert’s book, Ian Fleming: The Bibliography, will illuminate some of these issues. I’d quite like to have that Bulgarian 07 novel by Andrei Gulyashki, but copies of that trend to be very expensive. And perhaps I’ll buy that Bantam set, but other than that, I think I’m pretty satisfied!

Thanks again to Jeremy for joining us and sharing his love of Ian Fleming's work. For more information about Jeremy Duns, please visit his blog website. He has written an extensive series called 007 In-Depth. A fun starting point is Bloods Line, which references the The London Magazine above -and you can search the blog for additional entries. You can find Jeremy's books and other spy treasures in Spy Vibe's secure Amazon Store. 


Stay tuned for another edition of For Your Shelf Only. Series links: Jon Gilbert, Raymond Benson, Jeremy Duns, Peter Lorenz, David Foster, Rob Mallows, Roger Langley, Craig Arthur, Fleming Short, Matt Sherman. Check out Spy Vibe's classic 2009 article, Set For Adventure, where we joined forces with Lee Pfeiffer, Jeremy Duns, Stephen Bissette, and others to look at the best set designs from spy entertainment. More about Spy Vibe creator Agent J at Jason Whiton.