The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Fleming, Ian Lancaster
1908–64, English spy novelist, b. London. Son of a Conservative member of Parliament, Fleming was educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and Munich and Geneva universities and worked as Reuters’ Moscow correspondent (1929–33), a stockbroker (1935–39), a British naval intelligence official during World War II, and foreign manager for the London Sunday Times (1945–59). The knowledge and worldliness these experiences brought were tapped in his creation of James Bond, the most famous fictional spy. His novels featuring the handsome, wily, and sexy Agent 007 include Dr. No (1958; film, 1963), Goldfinger (1959; film, 1964), and You Only Live Twice (1964; film, 1967). Fleming also wrote nonfiction and the children’s book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang (1964; film, 1968).
See biographies by J. Pearson (1966), D. McCormick (1993), and A. Lycett (1995); memoir by I. Bryce (1975, repr. 1984); studies by A. Boyd (1967, repr. 1975), T. Bennett (1987), B. Rosenberg and A. H. Stewart (1989), and J. Black (2001).
