Jon Gilbert is the bibliographer of Ian Fleming
and a James Bond archivist. Last year, he completed the gargantuan
'Ian Fleming: The Bibliography' for Queen Anne Press - a comprehensive
736-page guide to the work of 007's creator. It is not only an
indispensable source of information for collectors, enthusiasts,
libraries and booksellers alike, but an entertaining and informative
volume. Gilbert is one of the foremost experts on the works Ian
Fleming. He is a renowned bookdealer at rare book experts Adrian
Harrington Limited in London and has an encyclopedic knowledge
of Fleming’s works. His research took him to the Jonathan
Cape Publishing archive, Eton College Library, the Pan Macmillan
archive, Penguin Books Ltd., The Imperial War Museum’s
Fleming Exhibition, the British Library and the ‘Bond Bound’ display
at The Fleming Collection, London. In addition he has been able
to interview colleagues, friends and family of Ian Fleming.
MI6 contributor David Leigh
caught up with the author recently to discuss his research.
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So, apart from the novels and short
stories, what else is in "Ian Fleming: The Bibliography" because
it's a huge book (laughing, after having been handed
the 3.5 kg book).
Well it covers pretty much all Ian Fleming's written
output, not all his journalism there because it's probably
impossible to do. I know some collectors that tried but have
given up, and a lot of it the journalism was put into book
form as well and it covers those sort of anthologies. There
are a few articles that I've not included because they wouldn't
be considered published material, things like the Naval Intelligence
Handbook, he used to do reports for that, a newsletter for
the banking companies he worked for, the stock broking companies,
so they're not for general circulation, they're mentioned
but I haven't described those.
But it covers the important journalism from the '30s,
it's even got a note and description of his first published
fiction in the '20s when he was a schoolboy and then it
goes through his travel writing, obviously the birth of
the Bond books and all the Bond books and then his reporting
for the Sunday Times. Alongside that, I've also looked
at the forewords and contributions he's made to others
books, there are seven or eight of those, things like "The
Seven Deadly Sins", that was one of his ideas and
he wrote the introduction, there was a novel called "All
Night At Mr Stanyhurst's", which was a Cape published
novel. |
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Fleming loved it, it was written in the '30s
but had long been out of print and when Fleming became a successful
author he was badgering the publisher to reissue this book. Eventually
they did and he wrote the introduction to that.
So, it covers things like that, there's section on the book
reviews that Ian Fleming had written of others, he was reviewing
books by Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, they're rather interesting
as a lot of people don't know about those, omnibus editions and
then the collected editions, the boxed sets and larger editions.
I think that's probably about it!
How did this project come about? Did you just
sit down one day and start compiling data for your own use, or
was
it for another reason?
No, not really, I've worked in rare books
for twenty years, this is our family business and I did my degree
in rare books,
I did a book binding degree, and we use bibliography when we
catalogue our stock on a daily basis. There was never an Ian
Fleming bibliography; there have been a few articles in book
collecting journals, but no official bibliography. In 2007 we
were consulted when the Queen Anne Press were looking to do the
collected edition of Ian Fleming for the centenary year, so we
had a few meetings and discussions, and I talked about the lack
of a bibliography. I'd always wanted to do one but I thought
I'd do it in my later years, and really as a result of that the
Queen Anne Press and the Fleming family said you're in the right
position, you clearly have the knowledge and the passion for
it.
I don't remember just deciding and sitting down through 10 or
15 years at that point of book selling I picked up a lot of knowledge,
we have a lot of collectors as we specialise in Fleming, so I
knew a lot about the issue points and the rarities but I then
had to make the decision and go and look at the archives. Various
archives and institutions I went to, the Cape archive was probably
the most important, but other publishers like Pan, Macmillan,
Penguin, all of these publishers that have issued the Bond books
over the years, so I went and looked at all their records. I
was allowed to photograph them, sit there with the iPhone, go
through all the records. You pay a fee, then I could take it
away and over the next 18 months or two years I could assess
all those records. So, that was good, had I not had that photographic
permission it would have been a lot longer.
How open were the publishers to allowing you access?
They were
very open once I had permissions in place, and the fact that
my publisher, Queen Anne Press, is run by Fergus
Fleming and Kate Grimond, Ian Fleming's niece and nephew…
I noticed your James Bond display when I came
in. How did you become interested in Ian Fleming and when did
you start reading the books?
Well, it was through the books
that I became interested in Ian Fleming, like most people I saw
a Bond movie before I'd
read a Bond book, that's the easier form, and I really enjoyed
the films. I saw them in my early teens, eleven or twelve onwards,
something like that. I didn't read the books until my late teens
and I was really surprised at how different very many of the
Bond books were and I really enjoyed them, I thought they were
genuinely thrilling, very well written, very pacy, which I suppose
at that kind of age I'd had a shorter attention span anyway (laughs),
and they engaged me and I wanted to know more about Fleming so
I read around the subject, I read some biographies, I read his
other works.
I enjoyed his other works, I think his travel writing is very
good, he's a gifted travel writer. He probably gets that from
his brother, who was a very famous and successful travel author,
and he was surrounded by a literary circle, people like Evelyn
Waugh, Graham Greene, Patrick Leigh Fermor, another great travel
writer, Fitzroy MacLean, Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, some
real stellar names. These were all friends of Fleming and I'm
sure they shared ideas, talked about books. I think Fleming is
a very good writer, of course his books are popular thrillers,
but I think they're more than just aeroplane or holiday reading,
I do think they have a literary merit.
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Sometimes the Bond books have been looked down upon,
certainly by Ann Fleming's literary friends, was that
fair and how influential was Ian Fleming as a writer?
I've been told by his niece that he really wasn't
too bothered by people's reaction, he was quite a cool
customer, and he really didn't pay much attention. The
books were controversial, everyone knows lots of stories
about the books and the reaction to them, "pornography", "sadism",
all these things that were levelled, it really didn't matter
to Fleming but there was a literary circle of friends and
he did demonstrate on a few occasions that he wanted to
break away from the formula of James Bond. Sometimes it
worked, sometimes it didn't.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" was
a very different direction and I think he probably agreed
it didn't really work. I think it's quite a bold book,
a brave attempt at something different, but of course it's
not going to satisfy the Bond fans, so the very next book
is a formula book, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service";
a good book. I think his short stories are very good, and
they're very different. Bond is very often a third party
in the story, the stories are told just to Bond. |
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Which is your favourite short story?
I like "Quantum of Solace", I like "Octopussy" as
well, and in both those Bond is a very minor part. It's not really
a Bond story. Somerset Maugham was the great master of short stories,
Graham Greene as well, and he knew both of them and they were both
former intelligence personnel too. Fleming always said, "Quantum
of Solace" was his homage to Somerset Maugham and Somerset
Maugham read his books and commented on them and looked upon them
very favourably.
Authors like Cyril Connelly and Raymond Chandler spoke very
highly and wrote glowing reviews, so from high literary circles
he did get a good reception. I think he was really proud of what
he did and, of course because of their success they were commercial,
in the end they earned a lot of money, but I do think they have
a literary merit, I don't think they're just ordinary thriller
fodder and I think that's why they've lasted this long.
I agree completely. You say you got to the films first
and then read the books in your late teens but I actually came
to
the books first, I borrowed my dad's copy of "Casino Royale" when
I was eight (laughing) and a lot of it was…
(Laughing) … the
torture scene! …
....And because of that I've read it, re-read it so
many times, once I was reading it and I guess part of me was
still seeing it through an eight-year-old's eyes and I realised
that I'd completely missed something or other.
But you enjoyed
it as an eight year old?
I did, yes. And I don't think it damaged me too much except
that I've had this lifelong obsession with Bond (laughing).
Well
there is an adult nature to them, they're very dark. I think
they were different to what was available at the time.
Some of the early reviews said the books were "Peter Cheyney
deluxe", now Peter Cheyney was a hugely popular author in
his time who has really fallen out of fashion and unless you're
dealing books, a lot of people don't know who Peter Cheyney is.
He did a series of novels called "dark thrillers",
like Dark Duet, and it's probably not unkind to say they were
fairly light thrillers, but that's what they were being compared
to. Fleming's had a lot more meat to it that wasn't there before,
at least in this country.
Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were very well respected
thriller authors in the States but I don't think we had that
sort of author here at the time. Somerset Maugham produced the
Ashenden series, which was hugely popular but he wasn't known
as a spy writer. Graham Greene produced some wonderful Cold War
thrillers and spy novels but he wasn't really known as a spy
writer. Eric Ambler was perhaps getting to a later point in his
career and John Buchan was earlier than Fleming, so I think that
Fleming arrived at the right sort of time for his style of espionage
fiction.
Why has nobody published a bibliography before do you think?
I don't know, it's a good question, I'm surprised they haven't.
The first effort was in 1978 by a man called Iain Campbell, and
I think it's a 60 or 70 page book, very good, but it's brief.
Obviously a lot's happened since then and far more rarities have
turned up. He didn't really have access to the manuscripts, typescripts,
proofs, the early material, but what he did was very good -he
even called it a preliminary to a bibliography so it doesn't
really attempt to be anything more than a checklist. And then
we had to wait until the '90s before there was another checklist
by a bookseller, a friend of mine in New York called Otto Penzler;
his is about 30 or 40 pages and expands a little on Campbell
but only talks about the James Bond books, no Chitty, no journalism.
And then an English dealer/collector James Pickard did an article
in First Magazine all about James Bond which was illustrated
for the first time and that was pretty good, but these aren't
thorough bibliographies. I don't think that anyone's really had
the time- this has taken me five years and that's some undertaking
and sacrifice, and you've also got to be in the right position.
As I say, I was fortunate to have meetings with the Fleming family
and the Queen Anne Press, and for them to get behind me and support
this and allow me to go places. But also, I had to have the will
and desire to do that and give up my time and do that. I can
see why it hasn't happened.
All of these things take a large slice of your life up,
don't they?
It could well have been a thankless task, but fortunately
people do seem to appreciate it. The initial response to the
book has been very good so I'm pleased with that. I'm hoping
people will be able to use it as a great tool for assessing their
collection, which is what it's meant to be.
When you started working on it who did you have in mind,
who were you writing it for?
Well, being a book seller I had
other book dealers in mind, as often stock is poorly catalogued
and I think that people need
to know what they've got- that's the idea of a bibliography,
but the same applies to collectors and anyone who is involved
with rare books or old books; librarians, archivists, collectors,
and book sellers. So in our field there's quite a broad range
of customer for this- not just for rare book collectors.
We've also sold copies to auction houses and libraries; anyone
who really needs to use bibliographies or works in the rare book
field. If Fleming is the subject, or twentieth century fiction
is their genre then this is for them. I could have done a James
Bond bibliography, but I felt it was more important to do an
Ian Fleming bibliography to pay respect to the author, to try
and cover everything that he's done, that's the least I could
try and do. Two-thirds of it is obviously James Bond, but there
is an awful lot that isn't.
Many thanks to Jon Gilbert and
David Leigh of The
James Bond Dossier.
