Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett

By: Anders Frejdh

Published:
2004-09-06

Ian Fleming The Man Behind James Bond paperback

Publication of Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett in paperback.

Andrew Lycett's direct access to Fleming's family, friends and contemporaries has enabled him to reveal the truth behind the complicated facade of this enigmatic and remarkable man.

With an extraordinary cast of characters, this is biography at is best - part history, part gossip and part an informed reassessment of one of this century's most celebrated yet mysterious personalities.

The definitive biography of author Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond 007.

Book details:
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Phoenix
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1857997832
ISBN-13: 978-1857997835
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 30mm

Review by our friend Jeremy Duns:
"This is a superb biography of Ian Fleming, and well worth reading if you're interested in him.

It makes two substantial additions to the picture provided by John Pearson in his (also superb) biography published three decades earlier: it gives the story of Blanche Blackwell, Fleming's lover in later life; and provides a much deeper context for the success of James Bond that followed Fleming's death. Neither of these were in Pearson's book, the first I imagine for reasons of diplomacy, and the second because most of it hadn't happened yet.

Lycett occasionally overdoses on the connections and backgrounds of very minor figures in Fleming's life, but then again he leaves few stones unturned. While the book is generally more sympathetic than Pearson's, he spares us no detail, even of Fleming's sexual preferences.

Fleming was a much misunderstood man during his life, and remains an undervalued writer. The popular perception is that his novels were superficial fantasies, simple Boy's Own adventures. This book shows that they were deeply ingrained fantasies and rather complicated Boy's Own adventures. This book also gives a context to the times in which Fleming lived and to his achievement both in that time and beyond it.

While no book could ever present the whole portrait of a writer, taken together with John Pearson's work, one feels that Lycett comes very close."

About the author:
Andrew Lycett was educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford (where he read modern history). As a foreign reporter he specialised in Africa and the Middle East. A full-time author since the early 1990s, he has written a number of highly acclaimed biographies and lives in north London.

Other editions of Andrew Lycett's Ian Fleming on From Sweden With Love:
>Ian Fleming (UK hardcover, October 1995)
>Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond (US hardback, April 1996)
>Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond (Audiobook, August 2010)
>Ian Fleming (Kindle edition, October 2012)

Order the U.K. paperback edition of Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond from Amazon UK:

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857997832/fromswedenwit-21/

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#andrew_lycett

#ian_fleming_books

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