You Only Live Twice

'A sensational imagination' Sunday Times

Date publised:1964

Original Summary of the Plot

When Ernst Stavro Blofeld blasted into eternity the girl whom James Bond had married only hours before, the heart, the zest for life, went out of Bond. Incredibly from being a top agent of the Secret Service, he had gone to pieces, was even on the verge of becoming a security risk. M is persuaded to give him one last chance - an impossible mission far removed from his usual duties - and Bond leaves for Japan.

There, coming under the orders of the formidable 'Tiger' Tanaka, Head of the Japanese Secret Service, the Koan-Chosa-Kyoku, he is indeed subjected to the shock treatment his condition demanded.

Shock treatment? The reader will also be subjected to it in full measure in this, perhaps the most bizarre and doom-fraught of all James Bond's adventures.
Plot Summary from the original jacket copy of the Jonathan Cape edition

Current Summary of the Plot

Bond, a shattered man after the death of his wife at the hands of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, has gone to pieces as an agent, endangering himself and his fellow operatives. M, unwilling to accept the loss of one of his best men, sends 007 to Japan for one last, near-impossible mission. But Japan proves to be Bond's downfall, leading him to a mysterious residence known as the 'Castle of Death' where he encounters an old enemy revitalised. All the omens suggest that this is the end for the British agent and, for once, even Bond himself seems unable to disagree....
Plot Summary adapted from the current Penguin edition

The Villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Principal location: Japan

Date made into a film: 1967

James Bond played by Sean Connery

'Instructive and entertaining' Cyril Connolly

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