Ian Fleming and the Lily Library 

The Ian Fleming Manuscripts!  Bond from the Page to the Screen! 

Join us as we continue our discussion where we examine the Ian Fleming James Bond manuscripts at The Lilly Library at Indiana University in the state of Indiana in the United States.

We pick it up with the novel Dr. No:

Dr. No – published  1958 

• Honey Ryder in the manuscript is not wearing a bikini – but just the wide leather belt and a hunting knife in a sheath!  Anyone can read this in the published book, of course, but looking at the manuscript and how Ian Fleming describes her is quite nice:   first he types that she emerges naked, but then in a handwritten note, in ink, he writes: “She was not quite naked.  She was wearing a broad leather belt around her waist, with a hunting knife in a leather sheath at the right hip.”   Fleming used a lot of detailed descriptions to make things spicy and hot.   The last line in his hand-written correction is, “The belt made her nakedness extraordinarily erotic.”  How cool is that!  Of course, in the movie, she was wearing a bikini and the knife was on her left hip.    
• On pg 1, the Queens Club was originally called “The St. James Club”.  It was first changed to Kings Club and finally Queens club.  The manuscript goes on to say “which for fifty years, has boasted  ‘No Jews. No Negroes. No Dogs‘.  This was changed to “which, for fifty years has boasted the power and frequency of its black-balls.  This isn’t the last time in the Ian Fleming books where race and religion are written in, let’s call it “an ideology fortunately changed” 
• The last line of the manuscript was handwritten by Fleming to be “Do what I tell you.   This was changed to “Do as you’re told” in the final version of the book. 

For Your Eyes Only – published 1960 

From A View to a Kill – nothing to do with the movie! 

• A rosebush splits and opens to a shaft.   
  Takes place in Paris? 
• “You’re just like a lot of children playing at Red Indians,” says Mary Ann.  Very close to in Goldeneye when Natalya Simonova says to Blond, “You are just like boys with toys.”  

Death Leaves an Echo 

• Starts in Jamaica 

• Mrs. Wilson is scratched to become Mrs. Havelock 

Quantum of Solace 

• Not really a Bond story, but he is in it.   More of a story within a story, that someone narrates to Bond.   Weird. 
• Nassau – Bond didn’t like Nassau.   Everyone was too rich. 
• Bond leaving for Miami the next day.  Castro rebels etc. 

• Last line:  about Bond: “For some reason, his life suddenly seemed hollow and lonely” 

Risico – 32 pages  

Hildebrand Rarity  32 pages 

• On the island of Mahe – the largest island in the Seychelles group. 

• Mr. Krest – who appears in the movie License to Kill, actually appears in the Hildebrand Rarity and he collects marine specimens – something to do with his Foundation.   There is supposedly a fish that is only found around Chagrin island 
• Sharks and barracuda  
• Bond sent to Seychelles because the British fleet is having trouble with their fleet based in the Maldives – communists sabotaging.  Bond found nothing and thought all was good. 
• Krest is driven by money and he can get anything he wants – even species protected by law – with enough money.  Page 13  
• Page 14: Krest: “Twenty-four hours on the island and I’ve already knocked off three-quarters of my list.”   

• The Hildebrand Rarity – is a fish “caught by Professor Hildebrand of Johannesburg University in a net off Chagrin Island in the Seychelles group. April 1925”  A unique member of the SquirrelFish family 

Goldfinger – published 1959 

• Title page: GOLDFINGER typed out. Then crossed out and above is handwritten: “The Richest Man in the World”, then that is scribbled out with pen, and beneath it is written in pen, “GOLDFINGER”   Fascinating to know what Ian Fleming was thinking when he did this, but the name could have been changed!     We could have been referring to Ian Fleming’s seventh novel (3rd movie from EON Productions) as “The Richest Man in the World.”   Doesn’t have the zing of Goldfinger, does it?   Maybe why Fleming changed it back! 
• Jill Masterton was originally called Tilly Masterton.  Tilly was scratched out and renamed Jill.    Remember in the movie, the sisters have the last name of MasterSon, note the S, not Masterton with a T as the book has it 

• His car was an Aston Martin DB III in the book.  In the manuscript, it was a DB7 until it was crossed out and became the DB III.  We all know the DB5 from this movie. 

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – published 1963 

• Page 29: Fleming scratches out  “M. Stomboni” and hand-writes in pen, “Draco”!    Another name change that to us Bond fans, Draco is so well known!  Not Stomboni!”   And Fleming describes his face as a very delightful face, “so lit with humour and mischief and magnetism . . .”  Gabriele Ferzetti was perfectly cast to place Marc-Ange Draco!   One of my favorite Bond characters ever. 
• On page 33:  Draco is talking about his marriage and the result of his marriage is his daughter, “Terrizina.”   But wait!  Fleming scratches out Terrzina and pens in “Teresa”! 
• On page 34, we discover that Tracy’s first husband, an Italian that Draco did not like, deserted her.  BUT…..Fleming scratches out “Draco” which was going to be her husband’s last name, and puts in instead Count “Julio Vincenzo.”   Wow!  So Fleming reversed the surnames of her Italian husband and her father because earlier on page 29 he changed Stomboni to Draco for Teresa’s father!!  All on Page 34 
• Page 29: When Bond meets Draco for the first time, he does indeed throw the knife at a calendar, saying “September the 16th” and throws the knife sticking it in the calendar.   “Draco says, “actually the 15th but quite respectable.”   Very close to the movie. 

• Blofeld info on Page 50 
• Page 67 is the description in Chapter Nine: Ten Gorgeous Girls (Piz Gloria in the movie) 
• Page 125: Piz Gloria mentioned.  Back up to …. 
• Page 129: Blofeld, handwritten 
• Page `62 the Walther PPK is mentioned 

• Page 1`66: Fleming scratches out Harpers and writes in “Jack Daniels’ bourbon”  Bond pours himself a drink on the rocks and added water 
• Married at the British Council (page 192) on New Year’s Day at 10:30 am.  The head of Station M was the best man.   After the ceremony at the Counsel’s home, Bond walks down the steps to the waiting Lancia, with white ribbons tied from the corners of the windscreen to the grill of the radiator.  This is not in Portugal however, but on the Autobahn near Strasburg and Kufstein. 
• Tracy is driving in the written manuscript and Bond asks her to pull over because “I’ve got two things to do.”   1) He took her into his arms and kissed her.  In pen, Fleming writes about the typewritten lines, “That’s the first thing and I just want to say that” (back to typewritten  “I’ll look after you, Tracy.   Will you mind being looked after?”    Tracy replies with a smile, and concludes “Let’s just look after each other.” 
• Then Bond wants to get out of the car and take down the ribbons, saying, “ I can’t stand looking like a coronation. D’you mind?”  So this part is very close to the movie.   Then they took the roof down on the car.  “Let’s,” says Tracy.  “We can only see half the world with it up (handwritten)… 
• As they drive, Bond notices a speck of red – a car miles behind them.    And Tracy notices it is coming up fast and asks, “Do you want me to lose him?”  “No,” said Bond.  “Let him go.  We’ve got all the time in the world.”  And Bond waves them past.  He hears a shattering roar and the windscreen disappeared.  Bond catches sight of a gun being withdrawn into the red car, and Bond and Tracy’s Lancia crashed on the side of the road, and Bond’s head hits the windscreen and he was out. When he came to, an Autobahn patrolman was shaking him.  When Bond awoke, he saw Tracy with her face buried in the steering wheel.  That’s when Bond says to the patrolman, just like in the movie, “It’s all right.  It’s quite alright.  She’s having a rest.  We’ll be going on soon.  There’s no hurry.  You see,” and Bond whispers into Tracy’s hair, “You see, we’ve got all the time in the world.”  This is the iconic line in the entire movie, and the Louis Armstrong song of the same title is haunting when heard from this point forward.   

Diamonds are Forever 

• The manuscript starts out untitled – Handwritten Chapter 1 at the start 
• Fleming had some major rework with inserts and cross-outs with his discussion with Vallance. 

• Fleming is trying to describe the fake diamond that Bond was looking at.  He originally typed glass, then hand wrote crystal, crossed it out and changed it to quartz.  He had to change “glass” to quartz later on the page as well.  

• Chapter 13 in the book:  Page 85 in the manuscript.  Insert describing Bond’s feelings about Negroes.  Probably good Fleming scratched it out. “Bond liked the Negro races but something in him objected to the idea of close physical contact with them and he knew that anthropologists were agreed that the revulsion was mutual.”
• Wint and Kidd were originally Wint and Gore, no Mr. in front of their names, just the last names. 

The Spy Who Loved Me 

Ian Fleming with Vivienne Michel 

• Spine & Title credits this to Ian Fleming and Vivienne Michel.  Vivienne Michel is the character name of the person who tells the story from her perspective 
• On pg 9, “My name is Vivienne Michel and at the time I …”   Vivienne is originally spelled Vivian, crossed out and spelled Vivienne” 

• Most of the edits were minor grammar, spelling, wordsmithing in this manuscript. 
• Look at the last page as he changed the last line. I love looking at the last line changes.  It can really shape your closing thoughts of the book  It originally said: 

• I knew exactly who he was and what he was. … This was a man.  
• (the ellipses were words overtyped so we can’t read them.) 
• Now says: 

• “I knew exactly who he was and what he was and everything, every smallest detail would be written on my heart forever.”

You Only Live Twice 

• Credit for the poem at beginning changed from “Japanese itinerant poet” to “Japanese poet” 
• “To R.M. Hughes & Torao Sito” changed to “To Richard Hughes & Roao Saito 

• Chapter 7 inserts for page 49 list the poison categories apparently replacing what was originally on pgs. 50 and 51 which are not in the manuscript 

• Not many corrections in this version.  However, there are numerous pages with different typefaces and paper sizes.   I presume that this means pages were replaced in this edition of the manuscript so we can’t see the original 

Moonraker 

• This must have been an early draft – a lot of inserts are in this manuscript 
• 3T2A0178.jpg –  Title page with lots of renamed chapters including:
  “The Man with Ogre’s Teeth”   Was changed to  The “Shiner” 
• My favorite Insert in all of the manuscripts was in chapter 2 of Moonraker.   There is a long hand-written insert that was pasted on top of the original manuscript page so we couldn’t see what it replaced.  What makes this so classic is that the paper Ian Fleming used for this had a letterhead of CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON DC.  This letterhead isn’t in the book.  It just happened to be the paper Fleming used to write his changes. 
• The ending again changes with a hand-written addition:  

She laughed. ‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige.  But there are plenty of others waiting to be picked.’ 

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Bond.  ‘Well, goodbye, Gala.’  He held out his hand. 

‘Goodbye, James.’ 

He touched her for the last time and then they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives. 

 So, 11 manuscripts later, we feel like we know Bond, and Ian Fleming much better.  We’ve gotten a peek into Fleming’s mind as he developed these stories. This was a fabulous outing to see the original manuscripts of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels  – what a unique experience and opportunity!   We really loved seeing the handwritten entries Fleming made.  That was really cool.  We would love to go back and study the manuscripts even more!   Just as a reminder, you need to make a reservation to use the reading room so don’t just show up.    

One final thought:  Indiana University is at a very large university in the US.   If you are into college sports of any type, you can try to schedule a visit around a game.  I scheduled our trip so that we could see the Indiana University basketball team play.  Dan is a big Marquette basketball fan.  I sort of forced him to go see Indiana play.  Unfortunately, the Indiana Hoosier basketball team got blown out.  That was the only disappointment with this trip.  The campus was great, the Lilly Library was fantastic, and Mother Bear’s pizza still is fantastic. 

This wraps up our trip to The Lilly Library at Indiana University!  

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