Ian Fleming Publications - Publication History

Publication History

After Fleming's death in 1964, the estate either commissioned or permitted new Bond works to be published. In 1968, Kingsley Amis published Colonel Sun, by Kingsley Amis. The company changed its name from Glidrose Productions to Glidrose Publications. Soon thereafter, in 1973, Glidrose sanctioned James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 by John Pearson. In 1977 and again in 1979, Eon Productions authorized Christopher Wood to write novelisations of his scripts for the Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. The filmed stories deviated drastically from the original Fleming novels of the same titles. Fleming had instructed Glidrose to only sell the movie rights to the title of The Spy Who Loved Me, rendering the film by necessity an original story.

In 1981, the James Bond book series was revived, with new novels written by John Gardner. In 1996, John Gardner retired from writing Bond books, and Raymond Benson quickly replaced him. Benson is the first American to write James Bond novels, a fact that was initially controversial. It was during Benson's tenure that the company changed names from Glidrose Publications Ltd to Ian Fleming Publications; the publisher's new name appeared first in High Time to Kill, (1999). In turn, Benson retired from writing Bond books in 2002. Since then Ian Fleming Publications has started a new series of Bond books, however, this time based on a young teenage James Bond in the 1930s. The series, written by Charlie Higson, is planned out for 5 novels and has been dubbed Young Bond.

In 2005, Ian Fleming Publications launched another series of Bond-related books entitled The Moneypenny Diaries by Samantha Weinberg under the pseudonym "Kate Westbrook". IFP initially denied any connection with the books, but this was later revealed to be part of a publicity stunt for the release of the first book, Guardian Angel.

On what would have been 100th birthday—26 May 2011—the novel Devil May Care, written by Sebastian Faulks, was published. Faulks based his novel in the 1960s; he also managed to use a number of the cultural touchstones of the sixties in the book. Faulks was true to Bond's original character and background too, and provided "a Flemingesque hero" who drove a battleship grey 1967 T-series Bentley. After Faulks, American writer Jeffery Deaver was then commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to produce Carte Blanche, which was published on 26 May 2011. On 11 April 2012, the Fleming estate announced that William Boyd will write the next Bond novel, due for release in the autumn of 2013; the publishers will be Jonathan Cape in the UK and HarperCollins for Canada and the US.