The Man with the Golden Typewriter (14 page)

This would produce something of the same impact as the CASINO ROYALE cover. It would have rather a spotty effect at a distance but this would be minimized if you reduced the number of diamonds on the cover to about 8 or 10, and in any case the spots would be eye-catching.

I did the waffle for Smith's and sent it over to Troughton last week, so you might care to contact Burt and see that he publishes the stuff when you would like to have it, and also perhaps supply a photograph.

I enclose a rough copy and hope it pleases you.

TO MICHAEL HOWARD

Goldeneye, 14th February, 1956

Forgive this tropic scrawl. I am sitting in the
shade
gazing out across the Caribbean & it is heroic that I am writing at all. But I must congratulate you on the jacket. It's excellent, also text, & please thank your wife for her inspiration. I feel a soupcon of cleavage would have helped, but I know your politics on that – & there
must
be a credit line with “Diamond clip by Cartier”.

You certainly knocked the breath out of Naomi [Burton] & I have also just fired her a snorter. The truth is of course that no agent wants to lose his name with even the meagrest Hollywood agent, whereas it couldn't matter less to the author or publisher. I daresay Naomi's in a bit of a spot but that's what she gets 10% for. Soft pedal her a bit now. She's a good girl.

Have done 52,000 of the next. Can't tell what it's like, but it goes fast & has been fun. Bit too much body hair & blood perhaps, but there are some chuckles for William whose poems I saw got a fine review in the New Yorker the other day. Give him my love. Must stop. There's a lobster to be speared & then as the sun sets & the fireflies come out a man called DARKO KERIM is going to shoot a man called TRILENCU with a SNIPERSCOPE.

FROM MICHAEL HOWARD

21st February, 1956

Dear Ian,

Many thanks for writing. I do appreciate your action and the effort it must have taken. Pat will be enormously relieved to know that you approve of the jacket. I am afraid, however, that the co-operation of Cartier must remain unacknowledged. I went into the point very carefully with my helpers in that House and they assured me that if such reference were made to the firm the whole proposition would have to go before old man Cartier and they told me that he, to put it mildly, is an unco-operative old gentleman and that he would insist upon the jacket being done his way. The stones I borrowed and the drawings and photographs they made for me were provided quite unofficially and several people's jobs might well depend on their help remaining anonymous.

I shall be glad not to have to pursue poor Naomi Burton further at the present time, and am glad that you have taken the ball for the moment, but I must tell you that Miss Briggs
⁹
is waxing hysterical and over this weekend has indicated pretty clearly that if Rank cannot buy the property now they are going to buy something else instead. It is driving us to distraction to see this splendid deal go down the drain and I do hope you will be able to cable us very quickly that the American negotiations are unscrambled and we can proceed with Rank.

I will give your messages to William when he comes in tomorrow.

TO GEOFFREY M. CUCKSON, ESQ., Nottingham

Mr Cuckson had written before, and now he did so again. Having read, and agreed with a review of
Diamonds are Forever
by Raymond Chandler that criticised Fleming for not sticking to the action, he felt the book was fair enough but contained too much ‘scenic description'. On a personal note he
added, ‘You know my weakness for girls in bondage, and after the original way you have handled it in previous books, notably
Live and Let Die
, I was disappointed not to find any this time.' In a yet more specific postscript: ‘Tiffany (or her equivalent) bound in a frogman's suit would be really something!'

9th April, 1956

Thank you very much indeed for your long and most interesting letter and for your kindly and sapient comments on my book.

I am inclined to agree with all your points but on the question of padding I have the excuse that I find technical details of a place like Las Vegas so fascinating that I put them in over-generously. Those odds on the various games, for instance, were hard to get hold of and would be of vital importance to anyone visiting the place. So I quite admit to my tendency towards overloading my books with Baedekerish information, but Chandler was wrong in thinking this was “padding” which I abhor in other writers.

But all your other comments are very much to the point and I value them. You should definitely be a book reviewer, at least for your local paper.

I will certainly see what I can do to find you a girl in a frogman's suit.

TO W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, ESQ., Villa Mauresque, St. Jean, Cap Ferrat, A.M., France

12th April, 1956

You shouldn't have bothered to write to me or at most it should have been a typed letter in the third person. When I am as famous and as patriarchal as you, I shan't be nearly so graceful about it, but more like Evelyn Waugh who has various printed postcards, one of which reads: “Mr. Evelyn Waugh regrets that he is unable to do what you so kindly suggest”, which seems to me to answer most of the problems that face the famous.

However, of course I loved getting your letter and I am delighted you enjoyed the book. I thought it was great fun myself and I only wish that people would write more books of exotic and fantastic adventure instead of whining away in contrived prose about their happy childhood and their ghastly lives in corrugated iron universities.

Annie, of course, has made no comment whatsoever on the book as it is set in America whose existence she doesn't admit and I used words like “mirror” instead of looking glass. She doesn't realise how terribly vulgar it has become to talk about looking glasses ever since Nancy Mitford wrote about them.

In fact her character has greatly improved since she went to Enton Hall [a health farm in Surrey] and had nothing but an orange a day for a week. A lot of the Charteris bile was squeezed out of her and there have even been moments since I got back from Jamaica when she has even shown signs of cosiness – a terrifying manifestation which I must at all costs keep secret from her smart friends.

Annie wrote to me in Jamaica that you had not been well but I don't like the sound of these “bothers” you have been having. I suppose there are no small things in which I can be of help? Should you ever need un homme de confiance (and I mean “confiance”) to do chores for you here or elsewhere you would, I hope, send me your instructions which would be executed faithfully and naturally without a word to anyone – least of all to the daily newspaper I have married.

But if you feel really deep despair, I will ship Annie down by Blue Train and accompany her myself if you wished. She loves you and would be a good tonic and I know she would hurry out if she felt she could make you happier.

Don't bother to answer this but don't forget that you have two slaves here in case there is anything you want.

TO MRS. SALLY REID, Oldfield Lodge Cottage, Bridge Road, Maidenhead, Berks.

When
Diamonds are Forever
was serialised in the
Express
it was accompanied by a photograph of Fleming. ‘Quite exceptionally for an author,'
wrote Mrs Reid, ‘your profile photograph in to-day's
Daily Express
reveals you as the type of man that could have written and experienced and imagined the thrillers mentioned in your article. The picture also revealed – in spite of the rugged planes of the face – a kindliness and self-analytical diffidence which does you credit and keeps your books human if tough.' She wasn't, however, at all keen on the business of serialising books – ‘the frustrated suspense etc. diminishes interest'. It was the first time she had written a fan letter and did so in haste as she was shortly to embark on a three-week trip to Canada and the USA.

30th April, 1956

How very kind of you to have written me such a charming letter about the serial in the “Daily Express”. I'm afraid the book has been dreadfully cut about to fit it into the space they had, but even so I am glad you enjoyed it.

One day if you come to write a book you will realise what a delightful surprise it is to have a letter from an admirer out of the blue.

Again with many thanks and with best wishes for your trip to America and Canada.

TO MISS BETTY REESE, Vice President, Raymond Loewy Associates, 425 Park Avenue, New York, 22, U.S.A.

Betty Reese, PR operative for Raymond Loewy who had created the outline of the Studillac, wrote to thank Fleming for mentioning it in his latest book. ‘You gave us a happy reference in fiction to a design of which Mr. Loewy is justifiably proud. If characters like “Studillacs” so must people.'

30th December, 1957

Your kind letter of December 10th was passed on to me by Macmillans, and I am delighted if my reference to Loewy design gave pleasure in the Palace of Loewy.

I may say that it was a sincere tribute to the prettiest and most practical design of any post-war American motor car.

TO WHITEFRIAR, c/o Smith's Trade News, Strand House, W.C.2.

In November 1955 Whitefriar had written a positive review of
Diamonds are Forever
. ‘I'll stick my neck out here and now and say that this is the thrillingest yarn likely to reach the bookstands during 1956 . . . To an armchair traveller like me, his evoking of the American scene, on land or in the air – or at sea – is quite superb.'

12th April, 1956

I must write you a note to thank you most warmly for your kindness to DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER ever since you first read it, presumably in proof.

I am sure your praise has done as much as anything to make the book a success and in return I am at any rate pleased that the book entertained you. The life of a reviewer is a dreadful one and it is a real achievement to be able to raise the eyebrows of someone who has to read scores of books every week.

Anyway thank you very much for your encouragement.

TO JOHN G. RYAN, ESQ., Commercial Division Manager, Shannon Free Airport, Ireland

John Ryan wrote to say that a passage from
Diamonds are Forever
had been read out at the latest meeting of the Co-Ordinating Committee of Shannon Airport. He cited the following: ‘Steak and Champagne for dinner, and the wonderful goblet of hot coffee laced with Irish Whiskey and topped with half an inch of thick cream. A glance at the junk in the airport shop, the “Irish Horn Rosaries”, the “Bog Oak Irish Harp” and the “Brass Leprechauns” all at $1.50 and the ghastly “Irish Musical Cottage” at $4.00, the
furry unwearable tweeds and the dainty Irish Linen doilies and cocktail napkins. And then the Irish rigmarole coming over the loudspeakers in which only the words ‘BOAC' were comprehensible . . .'

Ryan wasn't having any of it. As the man responsible for Shannon's shops he was astonished to hear that Fleming considered their product “junk”. ‘As well as beautiful Irish linen, woollen goods and famous Irish tweeds, we also sell the best German Cameras, Swiss Watches and French Perfumes.' As for the Irish Coffee, it had been invented by Shannon's own chef and was praised highly by most transatlantic passengers.

29th May, 1956

Thank you very much for your letter of May 24th and I am greatly impressed that Shannon should have taken cognisance of my light-hearted thriller.

I often come through Shannon
¹⁰
and it will certainly be a great pleasure to meet you on my next visit and apologise in person for my happy-go-lucky references to the goods on offer in your shops.

Perhaps by then all the Bog Oak Irish Harps and Brass Leprechauns will have been bought up by the G.I.s!

TO MISS M. MARSHALL, 6 York Place, Edinburgh

In swirly script and on notepaper headed Palace Hotel, Milano (crossed out), Mildred Marshall wrote that her busy travel schedule made it hard to keep up with Fleming's books but she much enjoyed them. There was, however, a question about perfumes in
Live and Let Die
. That aside, she would be very grateful if he could sign for her a copy of his latest – ‘maybe “The Road from Moscow” (I hope that is right!)'. In a subsequent letter she stressed that her own lifestyle was extremely fascinating and she intended to write a book about it. The journalist Denzil Batchelor had promised to look at the manuscript.

8th November, 1957

Thank you very much for your letter of November 3rd and I am delighted that you enjoy the adventures of James Bond.

Alas, attributing “Vent Vert” to Dior was nearly as bad as when, in one of my books, I made Bond eat asparagus with Sauce Bearnaise instead of Mousseline. I have also been severely reprimanded for having provided, in my last book, the Orient Express with hydraulic brakes instead of vacuum ones.

If I go on like this I shall one day find myself giving my heroine green hair.

Of course I will certainly autograph a book for you. The name of my last one was “From Russia, With Love”.

Again with many thanks for your charming letter.

TO A. G. ALLEN, ESQ., 1 Upper Stone Street, Maidstone, Kent

Arthur Allen, a man of military stamp, complained that many of Fleming's so-called facts were ‘a lot of rot'. First of all, it was impossible for two horses in the same race to be given odds of 6 to 4 on. Secondly, ‘I should imagine it is quite a difficult feat to pick up a girl & lay her on the floor if you have an arm around her thighs, & why on the floor?' Thirdly, ‘I have never yet seen a mobile Bofors where a Corporal, or any Other Rank, could turn the elevating & traversing cranks at the same time, &, to the best of my knowledge, there is only one firing pedal.' Unbristling his moustache to a slight degree, he admitted that his work as a ‘pen pusher' didn't pay much so he couldn't afford Fleming's books or anyone else's. ‘But I shall keep a watchful eye on the “Fs” in our local Public Library in the hope that they will purchase more of your books, at the moment they have only “Moonraker” & the one I have been criticising.'