Bond Books

Ian Fleming's first biographer, John Pearson, has identified 15 January 1952 as the 'birth date' of James Bond and reports that Casino Royale was finished on 18 March. Ian Fleming married Ann Rothermere on Monday 24 March in that same year and often joked that he wrote Casino Royale to take his mind off the forthcoming wedding. Whatever the timing, he left working in naval intelligence with the determination to write 'the spy story to end all spy stories'.