“It might be thought extravagant that the Company should have purchased a rather expensive sports car for Mr. Fleming in preference to a modest family saloon were it not for the nature of Mr. Fleming’s highly successful books. These are Secret Service thrillers in which the hero and other characters make frequent use of fast cars and live in what might be described as “the fast car life”.
This may seem a far-fetched explanation but, in fact, the success of Mr. Fleming’s books has depended in considerable measure on their verisimilitude and extracts from reviews, from The Times Literary Supplement downwards, and evidence of this literary virtue can be produced in quantity.
In order to write credibly about these things (and not incredibly as do some authors) Mr. Fleming’s need of this sort of car has been accepted on condition that the Company bears only a proportion of its cost.
Apart from its use in England, Mr. Fleming has used the car on one Continental trip through Germany to the International Police Conference at Vienna in June 1956 and the circumstances of this journey will form the basis of one of his stories. [. . .]
In conclusion I might perhaps remark in regard to all Mr. Fleming’s literary work that, although imagination plays a great part in the characters and plots, accurate reportage of things seen and experienced is the quintessence of their success and if the Company which owns his manuscripts is to prosper, it will be necessary to foster the acquisition by Mr. Fleming of the necessary backgrounds and first-hand experiences with which to write his books, of which he has so far written six in six years, each with an entirely different setting for his plot.”
FROM WILLIAM PLOMER
18th June, 1957
My dear Ian,
I’ve greatly enjoyed Doctor No – and so will, I hope, millions of other readers. A good brisk start, tension well maintained, Caribbean local colour most acceptable, wishful-erotic element, “physical exertion, mystery, & a ruthless enemy” all well up to standard – and fresh. In short, congratulations. I think my favourite moment is when Dr No taps his contact-lenses with his steel claws. (I’ve been practising with my Biro on my spectacles but it doesn’t ring true.) All the detail is immensely enjoyable, & the trouble you take with it is essential. I can’t nag at you enough about the collection of fresh and precise & unusual detail when you are using what is, to some extent, a sort of plot-formula. But you know its importance & effectiveness as well as I do.
I got so fond of Dr No I was quite sorry to see him vanish under a mound of excreta. All that trouble of his for that! What a shower!
Very few adverse criticisms. I wondered if the dragon wasn’t a bit pantomime-like, tending to produce hilarity instead of a frisson? Why wasn’t the seizure of the table-knife & the lighter noticed? Why weren’t they quickly missed? Wouldn’t the wire spear in the trouser-leg be a bit inhibiting in the tube-climbing? And isn’t the tube-climbing a bit reminiscent of Moonraker? Honeychile’ (a spelling of which I disapprove) I regard as your Rima,4 & the most attractive of your leading ladies so far. I much regret the shrivelling up of the faithful Quarrel.
I enclose a list of small points. I notice there are more in the first half of the book than in the second, but I don’t know whether this is because I read on in more & more excitement, or whether there are really fewer minutiae for me to carp at in the latter part of the book.
I now propose to hand over the typescript to Daniel. There is a smell of guano everywhere . . .
All best wishes for the greatest possible success of the book.
[PS] Isn’t there some local slang word for a cross between a Chinese & a Negro? Or why not invent one? “Chinese Negro” doesn’t sound quite right, somehow. What I shd. like wd. be some word like dago or mestizo – chigro, perhaps . . .?
TO WILLIAM PLOMER
19th June, 1957
I carefully weighed the envelope in my hand. If thin, it would mean two pages of exquisitely kind “not quite up to scratch”. If fat, then at least qualified approval plus the usual pages of corrections.
It was fat. With self denial I finished my breakfast and lit the first cigarette and then unfolded the green sheets, still with many qualms.
Now I am as sated as the wart hogs I visited at Whipsnade last night after their evening meal and the only hurdle that matters to me with these books has been scrambled over.
Of course I agree with all your comments and, in particular, chigro has entered the language.
I will attend to all the points you make but I think I am all right with the tarantulas whom I have carefully read up. I think we can assume that these are the South American variety, more puissant than your South African pets.
I had thought of a map of Crab Key and I’m sure it’s a good idea if the Bedfordians agree.
I am ashamed to say I had forgotten the tube climbing in Moonraker and I will think of a way of altering at any rate the first lap.
I’m glad you liked Honeychild and relieved that you seem to have swallowed Doctor No. It is so difficult to make these villains frighten, like Fu Manchu and the other classical Schweinerei, but one is ashamed to over-write them, though that is probably what the public would like.
I have various questions to ask you in due course but the main thing is that you seem to have rattled fairly quickly through the book, which was the main object of the exercise.
I got the words and title of “Marion” in Jamaica, where it has long been my favourite, but it has now been put on records and cleaned up and I dare say it is now called “Mary Ann”. My version is the original Jamaican but I dare say there will be much writing in about it and I will have to decide what to do.5
I note the ghastly clichés. How awful it is that so many slip by when one is making little effort to write “well”. I will attend to them.
Anyway, here come my warmest thanks for the uplift and for the immense pains you have once again taken with my annual stint.
TO WILLIAM PLOMER
Aware that he was battering Bond beyond the point of endurance, Fleming suggested to Plomer that the book might be titled ‘The Wound Man’. To which end he supplied an illustration that was first published in Venice 1492 as a guide for surgeons. It depicted every type of injury a man could expect to receive in the course of medieval combat.
26th June, 1957
I have always had a great affection for the picture you will find on page 3 of the enclosed stuffer6 for my house magazine and I insisted on it being included in this pamphlet.
Do you think we should re-title “Doctor No” “The Wound Man” and use it as a frontispiece? I could bring out the point in the text when M. is discussing Man’s ills with Sir James Molony.
Or do you think the idea is a bit far fetched?
Perhaps you would like to mull it over with the other Capians and instruct me?
There may be an “amusing” piece in this Sunday’s Sunday Times on the most dreadful experience since the Dieppe raid, so eschew the Saturday lollipop and set aside your fourpence for a copy.7
FROM WILLIAM PLOMER
28th June, 1957
My dear Ian,
I was v. pleased with your letter about my letter to you about Dr No. And now I have your suggestion & the picture of The Wound Man. It’s a striking & poignant picture.
My immediate reaction is that your idea is a bit far-fetched.
I don’t like the idea of The Wound Man as a title, for various reasons:
i) I prefer Dr No;
ii) “Wound” can be pronounced in two ways;
iii) I don’t think it particularly apposite;
iv) The picture has a mediaeval character; &
v) Might convey a touch of parody, or self-parody;
vi) & draw attention to Bond & away from Dr No, who ought perhaps to loom in this book.
But I will convey the picture & your suggestion to the other Capians for mulling over next Wednesday. By which time I hope I shall also be able to hear about the effect of the book upon some of them.
Stimulated, it might almost ap
pear, by your exemplary diligence & perseverance, I’ve finished my own oeuvre & sent it off to the typists.8
FROM MICHAEL HOWARD
1st July, 1957
Dear Ian,
Last week I managed to lay my hands on the manuscript of DOCTOR NO by jumping the queue and stealing my turn before Daniel got down to his detailed overhaul. I, of course, am delighted to find that you have stuck strictly to the rules this time and produced a first-rate formula model for the fans! Congratulations on having done so, so well.
It is a relief to find Bond back in circulation again, but the neurologist’s warnings are ominous – that battered body can only bear so much more beating, and back it goes at once to be burned and bruised all over again. One hopes that what Bond tells himself while undergoing it is true – that the strains and stresses in this adventure are purely superficial ones, and, uncomfortable though they are, they will not draw deeply on his diminishing reserves of courage and endurance. In other words, you can keep him in good enough shape to last out several more books to come, I trust.
Daniel tells me that he has made a list of points for your attention. I find it impossible to maintain enough detachment while sharing Bond’s adventures to take note of stylistic details – I think the only point which struck me was the rather recurrent smell of bacon and coffee, which was, perhaps, already familiar from the earlier books.
With an eye to your ever growing readership, I wonder whether it would not be wise to remove that reference to the club priding itself that “no Negroes, Jews or dogs are allowed”?
Is it not a little obscure why Bond does not climb over the wire fence instead of draping himself on it within reach of the octopus? And are the local negroes really as ignorant as Doctor No about the habits of those crabs which the girl knows perfectly well will not harm her? Finally, if every visitor to the island is tracked down with radar, machine guns and flame-throwers and exterminated on sight, was it worthwhile to construct the elaborate hospital front, and how often did those twittering nurses have any patients to practise on?
But mostly these aren’t the sort of questions one should ask oneself after gratefully accepting the adventure as a whole, and for my money this book proves that whatever murderous intentions you have harboured temporarily against Bond when you set SMERSH on to him last time, you still can find plenty of excitement and out-of-the-way background interest to keep him going for a long while to come.
I should like to allow time for William to read this manuscript before it goes to the printer so that you can dispose of any points which he may raise then, and avoid corrections in the proof. Presumably you’ll be going off as usual about Christmas time, and will want to get your proofs in November and have them out of your way before you leave. Easter is early next year, and I would like to publish on March 31st, which is the Monday before Good Friday.
Have you a ready-made jacket this time, or will you leave this one to me?
TO MICHAEL HOWARD
Writing to thank Michael Howard for a copy of Norman Lewis’s latest novel, The Volcanoes Above Us, Fleming hazarded a few ideas about the jacket for Dr No. Despite the excellence of Chopping’s design for From Russia with Love, the artwork for Dr No was to be by Howard’s wife, Pat Marriott, who had done the jacket for Diamonds are Forever.
1st July, 1957
My dear Michael,
Many thanks for the new Norman Lewis.9 I have always meant to read his books but have always somehow missed them. But I shall read this and give you my views.
Incidentally, since I gather that Doctor No has passed through the eye of your needle, perhaps we should start thinking of a jacket.
Of course we could make a splendid typographical one but it also occurs to me that we might do something with Botticelli’s Venus, of which I enclose a copy.
In the book Bond finds that Honeychild reminds him of Botticelli’s Venus seen from behind. How would it be to essay the idea with her standing on a Venus Elegans shell, of which I have some examples?
The other symbols in this picture would also have to be different but the idea might come off if it was done with elegance.
I attach the make-up I have in mind.
Incidentally, I fancy you might have somewhere the original typescripts of three or four of my books and I wonder if they could be dug out at leisure as I would rather like to have them.
Let us have lunch soon and I would like to No what you think about the Doctor.
TO MRS. MICHAEL HOWARD, Dippenhall Cottage, Nr. Farnham, Surrey
Fleming discussed the jacket further with Pat Marriott. Her first draft was good but, for all their collaborative hopes, it did not work. In the end she produced an entirely different design.
10th July, 1957
How very sweet of you to have written in such glowing terms. It is a great relief to have survived not only the X-ray eyes of all the Capians but even of one of the vivandières of Bedford Square!
I love the very feminine point you make and which had escaped me about Honeychile digging out the family silver. I see that unwittingly I have touched the funny bone of the feminine mystique.
Now about the jacket. I would love you to do one for me and you have immediately put your finger on the point of the idea. Chirico with a touch of Dali is just what I was thinking of, plus your points about precision and reality.
The dark brown beach with the pink shells leading off to the distant river mouth is straightforward and I will send you a specimen of the Venus shell in which Honeychile can stand.
I think we shouldn’t give her the diving mask or the belt as these would take away from the Botticelli point.
But what are you going to do about the emblems in the top corner of the picture? Black crabs suspended in the air don’t seem right, but a dragon’s snout belching flame might do for one corner and a smoking machine gun barrel in the other.
On the whole perhaps it would be better just to have the figure standing on the shell on the sea shore. Anything else might be too much of a caricature and in any case would interfere with Michael’s lettering.
Anyway, I’m sure the idea is worth trying and I do hope it comes off. See if you can’t do an idea of a rough before I leave on the 30th.
I would love to come and see you both soon in your nest but I can’t see any hope for the time being. I am already away far too often at weekends and I’m afraid a visit will have to wait until I can free myself of some London chores.
Best of luck with the jacket.
TO JOHN HAYWARD, ESQ., C.B.E., 19 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, SW.3.
13th September, 1957
Having clashed the previous year with John Carter over The Book Collector, Fleming soon found himself at odds with its learned editor John Hayward. His attempts to rejuvenate the magazine, however, fell on stony ground.
I have now digested, as far as my tracts are capable, the latest number of The Book Collector, and my first reaction is that this is surely the most leaden in content we have ever produced.
It seems to me that, even in the case of Dave Randall, the piety of his memorial to Mr. Lilly has squeezed out the occasional lightness of touch with which he has written for us before, and Mr. Downs’ style, full of “notable assemblages”, “concomitant with” and “pertaining to”, is really splendidly banal. I particularly like his description of William Shakespeare as “another great early figure”.
I sincerely feel that the eyes of even our most maniacal bibliomanes will glaze if we continue to serve them such very suety fare. Not only that, is there not also a danger that all our authors will start writing down to this supremely drab level? Once one adopts a particular literary formula, as we have found on the Sunday Times, authors, however lively, are apt to adapt their style to that formula assuming it is what we want.
Only in the Commentary is there humour and a forthright and pleasantly critical viewpoint.
We have been over this subject ad nauseam during our lunches and I thought we were all agreed that we
would endeavour to lighten without vulgarising The Book Collector by obstinately including in every issue, even at the cost of some pages of finest and weightiest scholarship, an article which would appeal to the intelligent amateur book collector. And I do hope that we can adhere to this principle in future. Various suggestions were made, including a piece by Desmond Flower on Churchill’s manuscripts. We all know Desmond Flower.10 Could this not be commissioned? Then at our next meeting we could all have other suggestions.
One other small point. I have a nagging fear that, as has happened in other realms of scholarship, the dead hand of the American “expert” may strangle The Book Collector if we don’t ration its content of American prose. I dare say one of the reasons for this heartfelt cry of mine is that just about half of the Autumn issue is written by Americans.
I must now get back to Diamond Smuggling.
TO MICHAEL HOWARD
Replying to Howard about various copy editing details, Fleming hinted that a different kind of Fleming adventure might be on the cards. His grand design eventually dwindled to a series of three articles about the Seychelles, ‘Treasure Hunt in Eden’, which featured in the Sunday Times in 1958. But the impulse behind it would resurface in 1962 as his globe-spanning travelogue Thrilling Cities.
26th November, 1957
My dear Michael,
Herewith the corrected “Doctor No”, and I hope I have cut out enough “ands” to satisfy your father. The passage he sent me was certainly horrible and I hope I haven’t missed others.
You will see that in the list of previous works I have separated “The Diamond Smugglers” from the rest with a sub-heading of “documentary” and I hope you agree.
Would it be a good promotional idea to put the number and dates of reprints opposite each previous book?
I notice that “doctor” is spelt at the top of the pages and I had at first queried this but I am sure it should stet, apart from the bother of making the change.
Any news of the jacket? I should love to see a late version before I go off.
Incidentally, apart from whatever opusculum I am able to produce in Jamaica, it looks as if you will have another bonus Fleming on your hands next year if you want it.
The Man with the Golden Typewriter Page 18
