The Man with the Golden Typewriter (3 page)

Once accepted, Fleming threw himself into every detail of the book. He liked to joke that he was Cape's hardest working author, and to an extent this was true. He had made a career in journalism, ran a network of foreign correspondents and was, indeed, a publisher himself. There was little Cape could tell him that he didn't know already. ‘I enjoyed his enthusiastic interest in the technicalities of production,' wrote Michael Howard with surprise – which soon turned to alarm when it became clear that Fleming had more in mind than simply delivering a manuscript. He designed the covers, organised reviews, invented sales tactics and cast a steely eye over the finances. At one point, to everyone's horror, he airily suggested he should take a stake in the company. It was an unorthodox approach that took some getting used to and would trouble Cape for as long as they published him.

Behind the confidence lay a measure of uncertainty. Fleming had always longed for success, but failing that would settle for the trappings. So, in anticipation, he ordered a gold-plated typewriter from New York to congratulate himself on finishing his first novel. It was a Royal Quiet de Luxe, cost $174, and to avoid customs duty it was smuggled in by his friend Ivar Bryce as part of his luggage when he visited on the
Queen Elizabeth
later that year. It wasn't a custom-made machine – Royal had produced several of them – and his literary acquaintances considered it the height of vulgarity. Fleming did not care. It was the sheer, ridiculous delight of the thing. He owned a Golden Typewriter!

The shiny prize arrived shortly after a milestone in his life: the birth of a son, Caspar, on 12 August 1952. For a short while he was uncertain how to spell Caspar (he wasn't very good with his wife's name either) but to have a family gave his life a dependability it had previously lacked.
By modern standards he was a distant parent, and by any reckoning he was an unreliable spouse: within a few years both he and Ann were conducting extra-marital affairs. Yet however tempestuous their relationship they did indeed love each other, and the fact of being both husband and father provided Fleming with a solid platform from which his imagination took flight for the next fourteen years.

TO IVAR BRYCE, ESQ., (address unknown)

In the early 1950s Ivar Bryce and his wife Jo made the transatlantic crossing four times a year and Fleming often asked them to smuggle items past customs. On one occasion, Bryce recalled, he wrote, ‘Could you execute one chore for me? I badly need a .25 Beretta automatic and I can't find one in London. Could you pray purchase one in New York and bring it over in your left armpit?' In 1952, however, Bryce was detailed to carry a particularly important item.

May, 1952

Dear Ivar

Now here is one vital request. I am having constructed for me by the Royal Typewriter Company a golden typewriter which is to cost some 174 dollars. I will not bother for the moment to tell you why I am acquiring this machine. Claire Blanchard
⁶
has handled all the negotiations and I would be vastly indebted if you would advance her the necessary dollars for the machine and also be good enough to slip it in amongst your luggage, possibly wrapping it up in Jo's fur coat and hat!

TO NOËL COWARD, ESQ., Goldenhurst Farm, Nr. Aldington, Kent

After much to and fro about the state in which White Cliffs had been left, for which Fleming insisted that repairs would cost at least £100, Coward replied with an offer for £50. In the spirit of playful banter that marked their correspondence, he added the words: ‘If you do not want it I can give you a few suggestions as to what to do with it when you come to lunch on Sunday.'

15th May, 1952

Dear Messrs Noël Coward Incorporated,

The mixture of Scottish and Jewish blood which runs in my veins has been brought to the boil by your insolent niggardliness.

Only Ann's dainty hand has restrained me from slapping a mandamus on your meagre assets and flinging the charge of bottomry, or at least barratry, in your alleged face.

Pending the final advices of Mann, Rogers and Greaves, my solicitors, I shall expend your insulting ‘pourboire' on a hunting crop and a Mills bomb and present myself at one o'clock exactly on Sunday morning at Goldenhurst.

I shall see what Beaverbrook
⁷
has to say about your behaviour at lunch today.

Tremble.

FROM JONATHAN CAPE, 30 Bedford Square, London W.C.1.

Writing to congratulate Fleming on the birth of Caspar, Cape was ambivalent about his new author's capabilities either as a parent or a writer. He had little interest in thrillers, believing them to be short-run phenomena that rarely covered their costs. Nor did he think much of their authors, and suspected that Fleming was a dilettante. Remarkably,
Casino Royale
was the only Bond book he ever read.

13th August, 1952

My dear Ian,

The Times this morning tells me of the good fortune that has come to you and to your wife with the birth of a son. My congratulations and best wishes. You have succeeded I should imagine brilliantly, and I hope and believe that you will be equally successful when you have done a
thorough job of revising the MS which I have read and about which William [Plomer] is corresponding with you. You are entitled to a certain amount of congratulations on the MS at this stage and I look forward to you having as much success as a novelist as it would seem you are likely to have as a parent.

To which Fleming replied, more or less cheerfully, on 16 August:

My dear Jonathan,

It was very kind of you to have sent me such a charming note on the birth of my son, but it was not so friendly of you to commit me to such a heavy holiday task.

The story was written in less than two months as a piece of manual labour which would make me forget the horrors of marriage. It would never have seen the light of day if William had not extracted it from me by force.

However, in view of your interest I am now at work on it with a pruning and tuning fork and we will see what it looks like in a week or two. At the present moment it is indeed a dog's breakfast and I am ashamed that William passed on to you such a very rough and slovenly version.

Already the corpses of split infinitives and a host of other grammatical solecisms are lying bloody on the floor.

We will see.

Again with many thanks for your note.

On the same day he wrote to Ann, using his golden typewriter.

My love

This is only a tiny letter to try out my new typewriter and to see if it will write golden words since it is made of gold.

As you see, it will write at any rate in two colours which is a start, but it has a thing called a MAGIC MARGIN which I have not yet mastered so the margin is a bit crooked. My touch just isn't light enough I fear.

You have been wonderfully brave and I am very proud of you. The doctors and nurses all say so and are astonished you were so good about all the dreadful things they did to you. They have been simply shuffling you and dealing you out and then shuffling again. I do hope darling Kaspar [sic] has made it up to you a little. He is the most heavenly child and I know he will grow up to be something wonderful because you have paid for him with so much pain.

Goodnight my brave sweetheart.

TO JONATHAN CAPE

Following a meeting with Jonathan Cape, Fleming outlined the contract as far as he understood it. Wren Howard, who had little time for such impertinence from an author whom he privately considered a ‘bounder', added his comments [in square brackets] for Cape's attention.

18th September, 1952

Dear Jonathan,

It was very nice of you to be so patient with me yesterday and here is a note of the points I think we covered.

1)
Royalties

10 per cent on 1 to 10,000;

15 per cent on 10,000 to 15,000;

17½ per cent on 15,000 to 20,000;

20 per cent thereafter.

If you are feeling in a more generous mood today, for symmetry's sake you might care to include 12½ per cent on the 5,000 to 10,000, but I will not be exigent.
[NO]

2)
Print

A first print of 10,000 copies.

I hope this figure will not give you sleepless nights. You may be interested to know that Nicolas Bentley's first thriller, “The Tongue-Tied
Canary,” published by Michael Joseph in 1949 – a very moderate and conventional work – sold 13,000 and is still selling.
[It is pointless & most surely unnecessary imposition upon publisher in recent circs & in a falling paper market & with quick facilities for reprint. Especially in view of point 11, I should decline.]

3.
American Publication

I suggest that our efforts in this direction should be mutual, but whether I am successful or you are, the publisher will receive 10 per cent of all monies resulting.
[OK]

4.
Serial Rights and Film and Theatre Rights

The same applies as with the American rights.
[First serials, certainly, but we want joint control over 2
^nd
sers.]

5.
Television, Broadcasting Rights, etc.

The same applies.
[and after joint control]

6.
Advertisement and Promotion

I hope you would agree to consulting with me on the text of anything you publish regarding the book.
[May be quite impracticable if he is e.g. in Bermuda]

7.
Design

I will submit some designs for a jacket and for the binding of the book (conforming with your very high standards), to which I hope you would give sympathetic consideration.
[yes, but NO MORE]

8.
Blurbs

I will submit text for the inside flap and biographical material and a photograph for the back of the wrapper.
[OK]

9.
Publication Date

Shall we aim at 15th April? (The “Royale” in the title may help to pick up some extra sales over the coronation period).
[RATS]

10)
Copies For Personal Use

For the fun of it and to make useful copy for gossip paragraphs, etc., I would like to suggest that I toss your secretary double or quits on the trade price for any additional personal copies I may require. (The odds will be exactly even for either side!)
[OK up to Dep.]

11
Next Book

I would prefer to make my decision on this when the time comes, but all things being equal naturally I would first submit my manuscript to you.
[See under (2) above]

12
Proofs

I shall return to you my corrected manuscript within a week and it would be most helpful if proofs could be forthcoming as soon as convenient thereafter and if I could have three spare copies, since I shall have an early opportunity of having it read in Hollywood.
[OK]

13
Page Proofs

As I shall be going to New York about 15th January, would there be any possibility of having page proofs available by then?
[possibly]

I do hope you won't find any of these suggestions unreasonable since I am only actuated by the motives of:

a)  making as much money for myself and my publishers as possible out of the book; and

b)  getting as much fun as I personally can out of the project.

Finally, I am sincerely delighted that you are to be my publisher and I hope we will both enjoy the adventure.

P.S. I return William's report which doesn't give me many hints on improving my style.

Presumably this means it is already impeccable.

TO JONATHAN CAPE

29th September, 1952

Dear Jonathan,

Many thanks for your letter of September 22nd, although it casts rather a cold douche on my adventurous spirit.

I suggested a first printing of ten thousand because it was a figure you agreed to when we discussed the point.

My own feeling is that the life of a book of this sort is not long, and that it is most important to make the maximum use of any initial impulse it may get from reviews.

For various reasons this book should be reviewed far more heavily than most and I am naturally anxious that this send-off should not be wasted.

I agree with you that sale or return is not satisfactory, but I think we can rely on Smith's displaying the book well, which I expect you will agree is very important.

Anyway, when the time comes I am sure you will be as anxious as I to get another edition printed very quickly if the initial reception appears to be favourable.

On the subject of American publication, Harcourt Brace are very anxious to see the manuscript, as a result of their Mr Reynal hearing of it from a friend of mine.

Assuming that Scribners are not the right publishers for it in Jamaica, do you think Harcourt Brace would be right? I am not quite clear why serial and film rights should be handled through your office. What is the object of this? And I am not quite clear what “joint control” means in your paragraph five.

Personally, I should have thought that a flat 10% to the publisher on all rights would be fair.

I don't want to have to employ an agent,
⁸
although I am everywhere advised to do so and, for the sake of happy relations between us and an
absence of subsequent argument, I hope you will agree to a round figure.

Regarding your paragraph six, whether I am in England or not, I am constantly available by cable through my office.

I should think I will be back in England by about March 20th. Will that allow sufficient time for arranging reviews, etc. if publication date is April 15th?

Perhaps we should discuss this point before I leave for Jamaica.

I shall look forward to tossing for the eighteen copies, and I only hope your Trade Manager is as pretty as your secretary!

About the next book, so be it.

So far as our contract is concerned, I shall ask you to sign this with the company which owns the copyright and other rights of this book and I will send you its name in a few days' time.