Book description
It is now 50 years since the premiere of Dr No, the very first Bond
film, with Sean Connery introducting 007 as the glamorous secret agent
who would become the single most profitable movie character in the
history of cinema. But James Bond was invented by one man, Ian Fleming,
a wartime intelligence officer and Sunday Times newspaper man who lived
to see only the very beginning of the Bond cult.
John Pearson's famous biography remains the definitive account of how
only Ian Fleming could have dreamed up James Bond, for he led a life as
colourful as anything in his fiction, which in turn became a covert
autobiography. Charming, debonair and a ruthless womaniser,
globetrotting from wartime Algiers to beachside Jamaica, Fleming was as
elusive and opaque as his imaginary creation.
In his new introduction, John Pearson examines the extent to which
Fleming's character informs even the most recent movie portrayals of his
hero, and how Bond himself has achieved immortality beyond his creator's
wildest dreams. John Pearson was born in 1930, and educated at King's
College School, Wimbledon and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read history.
He has worked on various newspapers, including the Economist, The
Times,
and the Sunday Times
where for a time he wrote the Atticus column.
After the success of his Life of Ian Fleming
, he decamped with wife and family to Rome, where he lived for some
years. Mr Pearson returned to England to research and write the life and
times of the Kray brothers, and is now at work on a full-scale biography
of the Sitwells.
