The Man with the Golden Typewriter

by Bloomsbury Publishing

Anyway may I now leave the problems to you as I am feeling slightly submerged?

  I enclose the first copy, marked 2, for comparison, but if you don’t want to use it could you please buzz it back.

  Regarding the proofs, I have cut out all italics except the lines of Corsican dialogue and the names of newspapers, and I am sure this is the best formula to follow as otherwise we will have a forest of italics.

  I have sorted out all the various problems and I don’t think much more remains to be done.

  FROM MICHAEL HOWARD

  As part of their promotional campaign for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Cape planned a limited edition of 250 copies. A handsome affair, it was quarter-bound in vellum, with a set of ski-tracks curving across the front board.

  8th October, 1962

  My dear Ian,

  I have to confess to being astonished by that film of DR. NO.10 Judging only, I must admit, by the lamentable productions that have been made of most of my favourite thrillers, I had become convinced that it was really impossible to translate that kind of book into visual terms. Eon have certainly stacked the problem in the grand manner and, by pulling out all the stops, I rather think they have got away with it. It was a delight to be in that particular audience the other night, but up and down the country I should think the film will be lapped up. I do congratulate you on the magnificent billing you have secured in all the publicity and in the credits in the film itself. Are plans for distribution in the United States settled yet?

  You remember mentioning in THE THRILLING CITIES the cover of Tiger Saito’s THIS IS JAPAN. Would this possibly make an illustration to the book and, if so, do you have a copy we could reproduce: or could you get hold of one?

  I have had two more thoughts about the limited edition of O.H.M.S.S. First, how about a frontispiece, viz. a portrait of you? If you favour this notion, have you a particular choice of picture? Would Amherst Villiers’s portrait serve? Second, we plan to print at most 250 copies, of which only 150 would be nominally for sale, and I should expect that quite a few of them would be given away. Those actually sold would be priced at 3 guineas, but the revenue from them after trade discount won’t go far towards covering the cost of quite an expensive operation, particularly if we pay a full royalty on them. As this is really a publicity gimmick, would you settle for, say, ten free copies of the limited edition in lieu of any royalty on them?

  I hope that you now have a chance to turn your attention to the blurb for THE THRILLING CITIES.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  10th October, 1962

  I am glad you liked the film, it certainly had wonderful reviews and seems to be doing good business. Apparently it is to open in the States in April.

  I’m afraid I haven’t got a copy of Tiger Saito’s “This is Japan”, and I cannot find that I ever referred to its cover but merely to the fact that Tiger was its editor. I don’t think it would make a particularly interesting illustration, but as it looks as if I may have to go to Japan in November I will get hold of a copy of the current issue and also look back through previous covers to see if there is anything suitable for us.

  Regarding the limited edition of OHMSS, I think Amherst Villiers’ portrait, which is just about finished, would suit you very well. But why not give him a ring and go and have a look at it. Incidentally, he is not very well off and I think should rate a generous fee.

  I would be happy to accept ten free copies of the edition in lieu of royalty on them, but I don’t see why you have to give so many copies away instead of selling them and then at least at four guineas a go.

  Incidentally, why not put up the price of OHMSS? I am sure you could get away with it.

  I will have a bash at the blurb of “The Thrilling Cities” forthwith.

  TO PERCY MUIR

  Percy Muir was assisting in the curation of a monumental exhibition, ‘Printing and the Mind of Man’, due to be held at the British Museum the next year. As part of the show he wanted to include some volumes from Fleming’s collection of first editions.

  10th October, 1962

  My dear Percy,

  This does indeed sound a magnificent affair that you are compering and naturally I will do anything I can to help.

  Unfortunately all my books are at present housed at the Pantechnicon in large crates and I have no idea how you could find what you want without unpacking the whole lot.

  The only hope is that we have built a small house not far from Faringdon and hope to get in some time after Christmas when the books will arrive and be installed in the shelves which have been prepared for them.

  Meanwhile, have you got a copy of that rough catalogue you had done for me shortly after the war? If not I have a copy and could send it down to you.

  I do wish we could meet soon as I haven’t seen you for years. Do please give me a ring the next time you are likely to be up and come to lunch.

  I have initiated the Fleming three day week but am nearly always here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.

  It was lovely to hear from you.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  7th November, 1962

  I gather you are panicking a bit for a blurb for “The Thrilling Cities”.

  To tell you the truth I simply cannot think of anything original to say about this book, and I do beg you to get one of your staff to write something suitable.

  It may help to enclose copies of the draft prefaces I have written for the beginning and half way through, with the reservation that these are not final.

  Sorry, but I can think of nothing in the way of a blurb except half a dozen boring clichés.

  Off to Japan from November 14th to 21st researching for a new James Bond. My God, how I work for you all!

  I shall be sending the corrected proof of ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ off to you in the next two or three days. But I would like to point out here how many of my corrections are due to literals and other errors of your printers.

  This is the first time I have had sloppy proofs from Capes and I hope you will take the printers’ own errors into account in adjudicating the costs of corrections!

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  13th November, 1962

  I would be quite happy for the ‘The’ to be dropped from ‘Thrilling Cities’.

  Incidentally, we must have a talk about pictures before Christmas and I have now corrected the proofs as best I can.

  I have also had them corrected by a bright lad called Peter Garnham who works for ‘Queen’, but I am so fed up with going through the book that I would be very grateful if one of your minions could marry up the two versions, using his good sense.

  Another small point. Since Amherst Villiers is likely to be off to America in the New Year it might be a good idea to get him to finalise, in your chosen colours, the drawing of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.

  O.H.M.S.S. wasn’t as bad as all that, but I am so used to getting really excellent proofs from your printers that I was only very slightly miffed.

  Incidentally, Max Aitken of The Daily Express likes it very much and will almost certainly want to serialise it, straddling your publication date.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  30th November, 1962

  My Dear Michael,

  CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG

  I have no objection to Haro Hodson if you think he can do the job.

  Mightn’t it be an idea for you to pay Trog, say, a nominal ten guineas for the work he has already done and which might give Haro an idea or two.

  But the truth of the matter is that I am now absolutely fed up with this whole series and have completely lost the mood.

  I am tidying up Adventure Number 3, but heaven knows if and when I shall produce an adventure Number 4.

  So would your machine now please take the whole problem over and cope with it as best they may?

  I don’t mind what alterations are made to the text, but I will do my best to discover a more delectable fudge and send the recipe along.

  Sorry to put al
l this firmly on your plate, but such free mind as I have is now engaged in trying to devise another James Bond.

  P.S. Would be quite happy to come to some joint royalty arrangement with whoever you choose, a la Trog.

  FROM MICHAEL HOWARD

  14th December, 1962

  My dear Ian,

  Very many thanks indeed for letting me see OCTOPUSSY and Cyril Connolly’s parody [‘Bond Strikes Camp’]. I have shown them both to William, who will be writing to you about them before Christmas, and from the talk I had with him yesterday I think we both feel much the same about them.

  I like your story very much indeed. I think it’s rather better than the best of the stories in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, but shares with one or two of them the disadvantage from the point of view of including it in a collection of Bond stories that Bond’s appearance is fairly immaterial and the part he plays a negligible one, so that Bond fans might well react as they did to THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and demand more of their hero. It’s rather like those alternate Simenons, the ones without Maigret: for my money they are often the better written of Simenon’s books, more varied and interesting and with better character drawing: nevertheless it is really for Maigret that I read Simenon and I can’t help slightly resenting the time he spends on the other books.

  As to BOND STRIKES CAMP, this outrageous riot really deserves the maximum circulation and if the London magazine is really prepared to take the chance of printing it I think you should let them take it. It would become a collector’s piece within hours and the much wider distribution would add greatly to the publicity value for Bond.

  I hear that DR. NO has already reached the top flight of the year’s most successful films.

  FROM NOËL COWARD, Blue Harbour, Port Maria, Jamaica, W.I.

  29th March, 1963

  Mon Ever So Cher Commandant,

  I really am very very ‘Proudfull’ of you. O.H.M.S.S. is, to my simple, unsophisticated mind, far and away the best you have done yet. In the first place there is much more genuine characterization than usual and I believed all of them. In the second place the ‘action’ parts although they go far, do not go too far and are terrifically exciting without straining the credibility to excess. In the third place it is really brilliantly constructed and all the Heraldic stuff and the discussion of biological warfare are very lucid as well as being most impressive. Whatever Mr Franklin may say I, for one, am extremely worried about the Great South African Land Snail even if he isn’t.

  Of course as an accurate picture of daily life in the Alpine Set it may leave a little to be desired. All jolly joking aside it really is very very good indeed and I only finally put it down so that Coley could pick it up.

  Another thing that made the book especially glorious for me was my discovery, on page 34 of a gratifying bit of careless raportage [sic]. In the game of Chemin de Fer dear boy, unlike Snakes and Ladders to which you are obviously more accustomed, there are certain immutable rules. Bond couldn’t possibly have lost to a One with a Buche of two Kings. The English lady must have asked for a card as she would hardly stand on a one. In that case Bond would have turned up his cards and also drawn one so he must have had a ‘Buche’ – to coin a phrase – of THREE court cards or tens. I hate to have to point these little errors out to you but you are getting a big boy now and in writing about the gaudy pleasures of the Upper Set, which I have adorned so triumphantly for more years than you, you must try to get things straight. Incidentally there is now only one mention of Fairy Tale in my lyrics so sucks to you.

  My time here is drawing to a close and I hate the idea of it. Joyce, Hopie, Coley and I drove over Hardware Gap and stayed at Strawberry Hill which we loved. It was redolent of proudfull memories of you and the Ex Lady Rothermere. It was staggeringly beautiful but a bit nippy after dark.

  Listen now. Ed Bigg, my Chicago doctor who really is the most sensible doctor I have ever encountered, came to visit with me on a holiday – vacation – with his wife. We had a long discussion about smoking which he is dead against (He gave it up himself some years ago and there is a little conscious virtue mixed up with this). Anyhow I told him that, for creative people who had the habit badly, it was a really dreadful deprivation to have to stop it. Then he told me that the clever Americans manufacture a cigarette with virtually no nicotine in it at all called SANO. You can get them King sized or ordinary. The King sized are better. They haven’t much taste but they most emphatically do the trick. I had two cartons sent from New York. Would you like me to bring you some on April 16th or better still cable to New York for some yourself. You may even be able to get them in London. Personally I never intend to smoke anything else. Of course they haven’t got the kick of Senior Service or any of our Virginian cigarettes but they’re very like Lucky Strikes or Philip Morris or any of the ordinary American brands. And you will soon get used to them. If you get the ordinary size smoke them with Aqua filters because they are not as tightly packed as the King size. Although I’ve been brave and heroic to cut down to five or six smokes a day it has been a bore and a strain, and to be able to smoke now without a sense of guilt is really a tremendous relief. Do have a bash. It is the demon Nicotine that is the trouble and buggers up the veins and arteries. I’ve been into the whole business with great care and am now as merry as a grig.

  I shall be here until the 7th and then New York 404 East 55th street.

  You were jolly sweet to send me the book and I would like to go on about it much more when I see you. I find that some dreary strangers are suffering ptomaine at Goldeneye and so I can’t use the beach. What a bore you are.

  Love and kisses to you and your poor old Dutch.

  [PS] I would have preferred ‘Pis du Chat’ to ‘Pis de Chat’ but one can’t have everything.

  TO MICHAEL HOWARD

  23rd April, 1963

  It is really ghastly, I have never made so many mistakes in a book in my life as in OHMSS.

  I am not blaming anyone but myself, apart from one or two very minor literals.

  Anyway, I am being deluged with letters from people ticking me off because Raymond Mortimer said how wonderfully accurate I was in my books!

  Here now is a total list of all the corrections which should go into the next edition, and I am hastily sending a copy off to Ed Doctorow,11 who is editing the book in NAL, in the hope that he can check them all in time for the American edition, otherwise I shall get a fresh deluge of brickbats.

  For your next edition would you please be very kind and see that all these corrections go in, and also make certain Pan has a list or, at any rate, the correct Cape edition from which to print.

  So sorry for all this, and I have recently spent a couple of hours with one of the stupidest Japanese in existence trying to make sure that we won’t get Arthur Waley12 on our tail over the next book!

  TO THE EDITOR, THE SUNDAY TIMES, Thomson House, Gray’s Inn Road, London, W.C.1.

  2nd April, 1963

  Sir,

  I am being deluged with enquiries as to why James Bond should dress his hair with pink tooth-powder. This misunderstanding arises from Mr. Raymond Mortimer’s most generous review of my opuscula in which the late Mr. Trumper’s “Eucryl” appears instead of his “Eucris”. (In fact Bond uses nothing on his hair and the Eucris featured only in M. Draco’s spare-room bathroom.) And your rendering of Bond’s “Attenhofer Flex” ski-bindings as “Attenborough Fox” in Mr. Mortimer’s most kindly reference to my efforts to achieve accuracy has resulted in one scornful winter sportsman suggesting I take a refresher course at Zermatt.

  Could it be, Sir, that a sub-cell of SPECTRE is building up in your literary department?

  16

  You Only Live Twice

  The winter of 1963 was the worst Britain had suffered for more than 150 years. In January, the snow rose twenty feet high, blocking railways, roads and waterways. Ice extended so many miles from the coast that people wondered if the English Channel would freeze over. In February conditions deteriorated further, wit
h more snow and gale-force winds. At Oxford somebody drove a car across the Thames. And in Goldeneye, at a steady 80º Fahrenheit, Fleming was writing about Japan.

  Fleming had been fascinated by Japan ever since he visited Tokyo in 1959 while researching Thrilling Cities. During that first trip he had met the redoubtable Australian journalist Richard Hughes – ‘Dikko’ to his friends – who guided him through the niceties of oriental culture with blasphemous gusto. Another contact had been the journalist Torao ‘Tiger’ Saito. Both men were there to greet him at Tokyo airport when he arrived in November 1962 to spend two weeks collating material for his new book. The result, over which Fleming was now toiling cheerfully in the Caribbean, was called You Only Live Twice.

  Following the death of his wife Tracy, Bond is in decline: drinking, gambling and turning up late for work. As a last chance M equips him with a new number, 7777, and sends him to Japan on a diplomatic passport to effect an information exchange with ‘Tiger’ Tanaka, head of Japanese Intelligence. Instead, however, Bond finds himself on the trail of his nemesis Blofeld, now installed in a remote castle under the name Dr Guntram Shatterhand. Here, with his repellent assistant Irma Bunt, he tends a garden in which every flower, every bush, every ornamental pond, is deadly. Helium balloons surround the castle, warning people to keep away while at the same time advertising that here lies certain death. Month by month scores of people come to commit suicide. With the assistance of Tanaka and an Australian intelligence officer ‘Dikko’ Henderson, Bond is given a make-over as a mute coal miner from the north of the country and installed in a coastal village with the family of Kissy Suzuki, an actress turned pearl diver. With her help he infiltrates the castle and after several narrow escapes manages to kill both Blofeld and Irma Bunt before escaping on one of the helium balloons. Winged by a bullet from one of the guards he drops hundreds of feet into the sea. When rescued by Kissy Suzuki, it is as an amnesiac, with no recollection of his previous life. Settling down with her he works as a simple oarsman on her fishing boat. But at one point he sees the name Vladivostok in a newspaper. It stirs something inside him and he feels compelled to go there in search of his past. Behind him, though he does not know it, he leaves Kissy several months pregnant. Back in London he is categorised as ‘Missing Presumed Dead’ and is duly given an obituary in The Times.