Publishers Weekly
★ 01/15/2024
Novelist Shakespeare (The Dancer Upstairs) delivers an exemplary biography of British spy novelist Ian Fleming (1908–1964). The scion of a wealthy banking family, Fleming was an indifferent student and at age 23 flunked the Foreign Office exam, after which he became a Reuters correspondent. After WWII began, Fleming used his contacts to join the Naval Intelligence Division as a lieutenant commander. Though Fleming’s war service remains shrouded in mystery, Shakespeare builds a strong case that the novelist authored the memo that inspired operation Mincemeat, which fed the Axis powers bogus plans to distract from the upcoming Allied invasion of Sicily. After the war, Fleming became a Sunday Times editor, and in 1952, he wrote the spy thriller Casino Royale. The book’s suave protagonist, James Bond, eclipsed Fleming’s own fame after his death by heart attack at age 56. Shakespeare offers shrewd insight into the enduring appeal of Bond (“The lower the sun has sunk on the empire that Bond was born into, the more radiant his glow”) and how Fleming’s personal life shaped 007, suggesting the character reflects the heroism of Fleming’s father, a major who died in WWI, as well as Fleming’s own “cavalier treatment of women” (Fleming had many affairs during his fractious marriage to Ann Charteris). This will stand as the definitive biography of the popular author. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
"Monumental . . . . Mr. Shakespeare is so adept . . . at distilling complex history and conjuring cinematic images." — Wall Street Journal
"Immensely detailed . . . . A dazzling, even dizzying achievement." — Washington Post
"Prodigiously researched . . . . Shakespeare’s surely definitive account [is] . . . . a rich and fully fleshed portrait." — Air Mail
"A book so buoyant and delicious that you feel it will be a friend for life." — Telegraph
"This excellent biography is as worldly and clever as one could wish." — Spectator
"Elegant and painstakingly researched." — The Observer
“[Shakespeare] is the first Fleming biographer to get his hands on just about everything Fleming wrote, which helps to make this biography somehow both capacious and breathlessly entertaining . . . . This is certainly the most three-dimensional portrait of [Fleming].” — Los Angeles Times
"Using rare access to the Fleming archive, Shakespeare fashions an exciting and often sad portrait of the man. It is rich in detail . . . . The book is terrific." — Chicago Tribune
"A monumental record of Fleming’s life. The completeness of the book is beyond doubt. Shakespeare leaves no future biographer much to discover. Fleming’s place in history is assured." — Sunday Times (London)
"A sustained and engrossing homage to the Olympic icon of a beleaguered Britain, and a writer damned to fame. With scarcely a dull page, it’s a chip off the old block . . . . steeped in exceptional research . . . . stitches up the loose ends of Fleming’s story into a satisfying 21st-century biography." — The Independent
"A definitive biography that deepens and reshapes previous versions of Fleming’s life . . . . light-footed and swift-moving despite its copious research . . . . Shakespeare’s Fleming rises from these richly textured pages as a more substantial and sympathetic figure than the preening snob of myth." — Financial Times
"Magisterial . . . . Shakespeare's hugely compelling biography is a bold reassessment of an intriguing person." — Washington Examiner
"Ian Fleming: The Complete Man is packed with women, their characters and stories carefully filled in . . . . highly accomplished and readable." — New Statesman
“Ian Fleming: The Complete Man attempts to peel back the layers, debunk the myths, and make sense of the contradictions . . . . [Shakespeare] has produced the most thorough biography of Fleming yet . . . . Hugely compelling . . . a bold reassessment of an intriguing person.” — Washington Examiner
"Fresh . . . . Insightful . . . . Shakespeare leaves no stone unturned in this exhaustive, highly readable biography." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The most comprehensive picture yet of Bond’s creator . . . . Definitive." — The Economist
"This is a marvellous book about Ian Fleming, but it’s also one of the most engaging portraits of a particular period of British history that I have read in a long time." — Antonia Fraser
"Fascinating, well researched, neatly written." — Literary Review
"Shakespeare has the rare ability to reinvigorate subjects that had seemed exhausted. If, like me, you thought you knew all there was to be known about Ian Fleming, prepare for a surprise . . . . Written with such brio that the pace never slackens." — Adam Sisman
"What a masterful and definitive study this is, enhanced by a novelist’s skill in making it so eminently readable and page-turning. I learned a great deal that I did not know. It is compulsively absorbing." — David Stafford
“Nicholas Shakespeare’s magisterial Ian Fleming: The Complete Man will surely be the last word on James Bond’s creator. Shakespeare’s intimate grasp of Fleming’s social milieu makes this superb biography even more authoritative.” — The Spectator (US)
"Exemplary . . . . This will stand as the definitive biography of [Ian Fleming]." — Publishers Weekly
“Shakespeare . . . was given unprecedented access to Fleming’s papers. Out of his research, he’s written a highly detailed, generally very admiring portrait of a cultured, problematic, creative man from a different era." — Bloomberg
“Ian Fleming: The Complete Man takes a deep dive into the life of the author who created James Bond . . . . Drawing on never-before-accessed private archives, the book contains new insights into Fleming’s career, friendships, and love affairs.” — MovieMaker
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-11-24
A fresh appraisal of the creator of James Bond.
In the introduction, award-winning biographer and novelist Shakespeare recounts how he was approached by the Fleming Estate to write another biography of Ian Fleming (1908-1964) using family materials never before seen that shed “new light that leads to new conclusions about the man.” Indeed, writes the author, “under the jarring surface of his popular image I could see a different person.” Drawing on these materials, diaries, and numerous interviews, Shakespeare neatly weaves the dramatic history of Fleming’s times into a very detailed narrative of his rise to success. Shakespeare is insightful in his explorations of how Fleming’s experiences influenced his books: his Scottish roots; his privileged, loveless upbringing; expensive private boarding school and then Eton, which furnished many characters’ names. After a brief, difficult stay at Sandhurst and a bout of gonorrhea, he was off to Austria and Switzerland, preparing for a possible government job and honing his considerable language and wooing skills. Working for Reuters, he was sent to Stalin’s Soviet Union to cover a high-profile trial of British engineers. After a lucrative banking job—when he got the book-collecting bug and had numerous affairs—he was selected for “intelligence work, the secret war that could save lives.” Six years as the personal assistant to the director of Naval Intelligence, Shakespeare writes, “gave him the secret material that he drew on to write his novels.” He emerged a “complete man,” and “he would spend the rest of his life in peacetime, trying to recapture moments of time like these.” Living in Jamaica, Fleming began Casino Royale: “Ian took the cards he had been dealt and slipped them to Bond.” Later, with some chagrin, a wealthy, unhealthy Fleming said, “I have become the slave of a serial character.”
Shakespeare leaves no stone unturned in this exhaustive, highly readable biography.
