Ian Fleming

(1908 - 1964)

In 1952, after having served as a British Naval Intelligence officer during World War II, Ian Fleming wrote Casino Royale, his first James Bond novel, at Goldeneye, his Jamaican estate. He was forty-three years old and weeks from marriage. “My painting bored Ian,” his wife later wrote. “He said he had no intention of sitting out in the sun watching me at my easel, and I suggested he should write something just to amuse myself.” He published eleven more Bond novels and the children’s book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.