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Thunderball

First edition cover, published by Jonathan Cape
Author	Ian Fleming Kevin McClory (Initially uncredited) Jack Whittingham (Initially uncredited)
Cover artist	Richard Chopping
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre	Spy fiction
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	27 March 1961
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages	253
Preceded by	For Your Eyes Only
Followed by	The Spy Who Loved Me

Thunderball is the ninth book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, and the eighth full-length Bond novel. It was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 27 March 1961, where the initial print run of 50,938 copies quickly sold out. The first novelisation of an unfilmed James Bond screenplay, it was born from a collaboration by five people: Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ivar Bryce and Ernest Cuneo, although the controversial shared credit of Fleming, McClory and Whittingham was the result of a courtroom decision.

The story centres on the theft of a pair of nuclear weapons by the crime syndicate SPECTRE and the subsequent attempted blackmail of the Western powers for their return. James Bond, Secret Service operative 007, travels to the Bahamas to work with his friend Felix Leiter, seconded back into the CIA for the investigation. Thunderball also introduces SPECTRE's leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in the first of three appearances in Bond novels, with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice being the others.

Thunderball has been adapted four times, once in a comic strip format for the Daily Express newspaper, twice for the cinema and once for the radio. The Daily Express strip was cut short on the order of its owner, Lord Beaverbrook, after Ian Fleming signed an agreement with The Sunday Times to publish a short story. On screen, Thunderball was released in 1965 as the fourth film in the Eon Productions series, with Sean Connery as James Bond. The second adaptation, Never Say Never Again, was released as an independent production in 1983 also starring Connery as Bond and was produced by Kevin McClory. BBC Radio 4 aired an adaptation in December 2016, directed by Martin Jarvis. It starred Toby Stephens as Bond and Tom Conti as Largo.

Plot

During a meeting with his superior, M, the Secret Service agent James Bond learns that his latest physical assessment is poor because of excessive drinking and smoking. M sends Bond to a health clinic for a two-week treatment to improve his condition. At the clinic Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns of the Tong connection, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction table on which Bond is being treated. Bond is saved by a nurse and later retaliates by trapping Lippe in a steam bath, causing second-degree burns and sending him to hospital for a week.

The Avro Vulcan: closest relation to the fictional Vindicator

The Prime Minister receives a communiqué from SPECTRE (the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), a private criminal enterprise under the command of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. SPECTRE has hijacked a Villiers Vindicator and seized its two nuclear bombs, which it will use to destroy two major targets in the Western hemisphere unless a ransom is paid. Lippe was dispatched to the clinic to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi, an Italian Air Force pilot stationed at a nearby bomber squadron base, and post the communiqué once the bombs were in SPECTRE's possession. Although Lippe has accomplished his tasks, they were delayed, and Blofeld considers him unreliable because of his clash with Bond and has him killed.

Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight by killing its crew and flying it to the Bahamas, where he ditches it in the ocean and it sinks in shallow water. SPECTRE kills Petacchi, camouflages the wreck and transfers the nuclear bombs onto the cruiser yacht Disco Volante for transport to an underwater hiding place. Emilio Largo, second-in-command of SPECTRE, oversees the operations.

The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns Bond to the Bahamas to investigate. There, Bond meets his friend Felix Leiter, who has been recalled to duty by the CIA from the Pinkerton detective agency because of the Thunderball crisis. While in Nassau, Bond meets Dominetta "Domino" Vitali, Largo's mistress and Petacchi's sister. She is living on board the Disco Volante and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt, although Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners supposedly survey the ocean for treasure. After seducing her, Bond informs her that Largo arranged her brother's death and recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino re-boards the Disco Volante with a Geiger counter disguised as a camera, to ascertain if the yacht has been used to transport the bombs. She is discovered and Largo tortures her for information.

Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases the Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs en route to the first target. Bond and Leiter lead a dive team in a fight against Largo's crew and a battle ensues. Bond stops Largo from escaping with the bombs; Largo corners him in an underwater cave and is about to kill him, only to be killed by Domino with a shot from a spear gun. The fight leaves six American divers and ten SPECTRE men dead, including Largo, and the bombs are recovered safely. As Bond recuperates in hospital, Leiter explains that Domino told Largo nothing under torture and later escaped from the Disco Volante to get revenge on him. Learning that she is also recovering from injuries, Bond crawls into her room and falls asleep at her bedside.

Background and writing history

The author Ian Fleming had long considered the possibility of his literary creation James Bond appearing on screen, and he had been in discussion with the filmmaker Sir Alexander Korda about a version of the 1954 novel Live and Let Die, although this came to nothing. In 1954 the American CBS television network paid Fleming $1,000 for the rights to turn his first novel, Casino Royale, into a one-hour television adventure as part of the dramatic anthology series Climax Mystery Theater. In June 1956 the author began a collaboration with the television producer Henry Morgenthau III on a planned television series, Commander Jamaica, which was to feature the Caribbean-based character James Gunn. When the project foundered and Fleming could not fashion a new plot for his next Bond novel, he used the idea as the basis for his 1958 novel Dr. No.

In mid-1958 Fleming and his friend, Ivar Bryce, began talking about the possibility of producing a film with Bond as the protagonist. At that time Fleming had published seven Bond novels in the preceding years. Bryce introduced Fleming to the writer and director Kevin McClory, who was making the film The Boy and the Bridge. Bryce was part-financing the film, which was being produced through a partnership between Bryce and McClory under the name Xanadu Productions. The company, which was never formed into a limited company, was named after Bryce's Bahamian home.

The three of them, together with Fleming and Bryce's friend Ernest Cuneo, formed the partnership

In May 1959 Fleming, Bryce, Cuneo and McClory met first at Bryce's Essex house and then in McClory's London home as they came up with a story outline which was based on an aeroplane full of celebrities and a female lead called Fatima Blush. McClory was fascinated by the underwater world and wanted to make a film that included it. Over the next few months, as the story changed, there were ten outlines, treatments and scripts.

Much of the attraction Fleming felt working alongside McClory was based The Boy and the Bridge, which was the official British entry to the 1959 Venice Film Festival. When the film was released in July 1959, it was poorly received, and did not do well at the box office; Fleming became disenchanted with McClory's ability as a result. In October 1959, with Fleming spending less time on the film project, McClory introduced the experienced screenwriter Jack Whittingham to the writing process. In November 1959 Fleming left to travel around the world on behalf of The Sunday Times, material for which Fleming also used for his non-fiction travel book, Thrilling Cities. On his travels—through Japan, Hong Kong and into the US—Fleming met with McClory and Ivar Bryce in New York; McClory told Fleming that Whittingham had completed a full outline which, he said, was ready to shoot. Back in Britain in December 1959, Fleming met with McClory and Whittingham for a script conference and shortly afterwards McClory and Whittingham sent Fleming a script, Longitude 78 West, which Fleming considered to be good, although he changed the title to Thunderball.

Writing and copyright

Chronology

In January 1960 McClory visited Fleming's Jamaican home Goldeneye, where Fleming explained his intention of delivering the screenplay to MCA, with a recommendation from him and Bryce that McClory act as producer. Fleming also told McClory that if MCA rejected the film because of McClory's involvement, then McClory should either sell his services to MCA, back out of the deal, or open an action in the courts.

Fleming travelled to his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica 1960 in January to write Thunderball. Before he left he wrote to his friend and copy editor William Plomer that he was "terribly stuck with James Bond ...the keys creak as I type and I fear the zest may have gone" He followed his usual practice, which he later outlined in Books and Bookmen magazine: "I write for about three hours in the morning ... and I do another hour's work between six and seven in the evening. I never correct anything and I never go back to see what I have written ... By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day." He struggled with fresh ideas for the plot and thought of killing off Bond, but then decided against it. Short of ideas, he based the novel on he screenplay written by himself, Whittingham and McClory.

On his return from Jamaica he wrote to his friend and copy editor William Plomer with a copy of the manuscript:

You may say that it needs drastic re-writing. I certainly got thoroughly bored with it after a bit, and I have not even been able to re-read it, though I have just begun correcting the first chapters. They are not too bad—it is the last twenty chapters that glaze my eyes.

Several titles were proposed for these works, including SPECTRE, James Bond of the Secret Service and Longitude 78 West.

Although Fleming did not date the events within his novels, John Griswold and Henry Chancellor—both of whom wrote books for Ian Fleming Publications—have identified timelines based on episodes and situations within the novel series as a whole. Chancellor put the events of Thunderball in 1959; Griswold is more precise and considers the story to have taken place between May to early June 1959.

Fleming wrote the novel Thunderball at Goldeneye over the period January to March 1960, based on the screenplay written by himself, Whittingham and McClory. In March 1961 McClory read an advance copy of the book and he and Whittingham immediately petitioned the High Court in London for an injunction to stop publication. The plagiarism case was heard on 24 March 1961 and allowed the book to be published, although the door was left open for McClory to pursue further action at a later date. He did so and on 19 November 1963 the case of McClory v Fleming was heard at the Chancery Division of the High Court. The case lasted three weeks, during which time Fleming was unwell—suffering a heart attack during the case itself—and, under advice from his friend Ivar Bryce, offered a deal to McClory, settling out of court. McClory gained the literary and film rights for the screenplay, while Fleming was given the rights to the novel, although it had to be recognised as being "based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and the Author". On settlement, "Fleming ultimately admitted 'that the novel reproduces a substantial part of the copyright material in the film scripts'; 'that the novel makes use of a substantial number of the incidents and material in the film scripts'; and 'that there is a general similarity of the story of the novel and the story as set out in the said film scripts'". On 12 August 1964, nine months after the trial ended, Fleming suffered another heart attack and died aged 56.

Script elements

When the script was first drafted in May 1959, with the storyline of an aeroplane of celebrities in the Atlantic, it included elements from Fleming's friend Ernie Cuneo, who included ships with underwater trapdoors in their hulls and an underwater battle scene. The Russians were originally the villains, then the Sicilian Mafia, but this was later changed again to the internationally operating criminal organisation, SPECTRE. Both McClory and Fleming claim to have come up with the concept of SPECTRE; Fleming biographer Andrew Lycett and John Cork both note Fleming as the originator of the group, Lycett saying that "[Fleming] proposed that Bond should confront not the Russians but SPECTRE ..." while Cork produced a memorandum in which Fleming called for the change to SPECTRE:

My suggestion on (b) is that SPECTRE, short for Special Executive for Terrorism, Revolution and Espionage, is an immensely powerful organisation armed by ex-members of SMERSH, the Gestapo, the Mafia, and the Black Tong of Peking, which is placing these bombs in NATO bases with the objective of then blackmailing the Western powers for £100 million or else.
Ian Fleming: memo to Whittingham and McClory

Cork also noted that Fleming used the word "spectre" previously: in the fourth novel, Diamonds Are Forever, for a town near Las Vegas called "Spectreville", and for "spektor", the cryptograph decoder in From Russia, with Love. Others, such as continuation Bond author Raymond Benson, disagree, saying that McClory came up with the SPECTRE concept.

Those elements which Fleming used which can be put down to McClory and Whittingham (either separately or together) include the airborne theft of a nuclear bomb, "Jo" Petachi and his sister Sophie, and Jo's death at the hands of Sophie's boss. The remainder of the screenplay was a two-year collaboration among Fleming, Whittingham, McClory, Bryce and Cuneo.

Development

Inspirations

As with the previous novels in the series, aspects of Thunderball come from Fleming's own experiences: the visit to the health clinic was inspired by his own 1955 trip to the Enton Hall health farm near Godalming and Bond's medical record, as read out to him by M, is a slightly modified version of Fleming's own. The name of the health farm, Shrublands, was taken from that of a house owned by the parents of his wife's friend, Peter Quennell. Fleming dedicates a quarter of the novel to the Shrublands setting and the naturalist cure Bond undergoes.

Ordzhonikidze was a Sverdlov-class cruiser, similar to that shown in this photograph (Alexander Nevsky).

Bond's examination of the hull of Disco Volante was inspired by the ill-fated mission undertaken on 19 April 1956 by the ex-Royal Navy frogman "Buster" Crabb on behalf of MI6, as he examined the hull of the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze that had brought Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin on a diplomatic mission to Britain. Crabb disappeared in Portsmouth Harbour and was never seen again. As well as having Buster Crabb in mind, Fleming would also recall the information about the 10th Light Flotilla, an elite unit of Italian navy frogmen who used wrecked ships in Gibraltar to launch attacks on Allied shipping. The specifications for Disco Volante herself had been obtained by Fleming from the Italian ship designer, Leopold Rodriguez.

As often happened in Fleming's novels, several names were taken from those of people he had known. Ernst Stavro Blofeld's name comes from Tom Blofeld, a Norfolk farmer and a fellow member of Fleming's gentlemen's club Boodle's, who was a contemporary of Fleming's at Eton. When Largo rents his beachside villa, it is from "an Englishman named Bryce", whose name was taken from Old Etonian Ivar Bryce, Fleming's friend, who had a beachside property in Jamaica called Xanadu.

Other names used by Fleming included a colleague at The Sunday Times, Robert Harling, who was transformed into Commissioner of Police Harling, while an ex-colleague from his stock broking days, Hugo Pitman, became Chief of Immigration Pitman and Fleming's golfing friend, Bunny Roddick, became Deputy Governor Roddick. The title Thunderball came from a conversation Fleming had about a US atomic test.

Characters

According to continuation Bond author Raymond Benson, there was further development of the Bond character in Thunderball, with glimpses of both his sense of humour and his own sense of mortality. Felix Leiter had his largest role to date in a Bond story and much of his humour came through, while his incapacity, suffered in Live and Let Die, had not led to bitterness or to his being unable to join in with the underwater fight scene towards the end of the novel.

"All his early books, save Diamonds are Forever, depend on large, grotesque villains. Returning for inspiration to Fu Manchu, however, moves Fleming toward the villain who is not only enormously powerful and grotesque, but who is also part intellectual and part “gentleman crook.”"

Style

Fleming later said of his work, "while thrillers may not be Literature with a capital L, it is possible to write what I can best describe as 'thrillers designed to be read as literature'." He used well-known brand names and everyday details to produce a sense of realism, which Amis called "the Fleming effect". Amis describes it as "the imaginative use of information, whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond's world ... [is] bolted down to some sort of reality, or at least counter-balanced". The literary critic Meir Sternberg observes that Fleming went to great lengths to research the background of various items used in the novels to give readers an impression of the lifestyle or background of the characters.

Within the text Benson identifies what he described as the "Fleming Sweep", the use of "hooks" at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service the sweep "moves with confidence and readability" to build the tension. Where the sweep is broken, it is at the visit to the College of Arms and at the meeting at M's house; in both these parts, journalistic background provides necessary detail to enable the plot to proceed. The hooks combine with what the novelist Anthony Burgess calls "a heightened journalistic style"; this, says Fleming, produces "a speed of narrative, which hustles the reader past each danger point of mockery".

The literary analyst LeRoy L. Panek sees On Her Majesty's Secret Service as a fable; he considers Fleming also saw this, and subverted some aspects of the convention within the novel, such as when Bond thinks that "It would be amusing to reverse the old fable—first to rescue the girl, then to slay the monster". Panek sees aspects of fables in many of the Bond novels, often associated with the villains—Fleming describes Le Chiffre as an ogre, Mr Big as a giant, Drax and Kleb (Moonraker) as a dragon and a toad, respectively—and notes that "Fleming puts damsels in distress in all the books".

• Panek: "Although after this novel [FRWL] Fleming dropped the articulated frame story, he did in Thunderball evolve it into split narration which switches from the bad guys to the good guys".

Swap from Russian threat to SPECTRE:

"Goldfinger and Thunderball are nothing more than stories of the ultimate heist ... with a tiny bit of international garnish thrown in."

The Shrublands section of the story are a revenge fantasy, according to the Anglicist Robert Druce. The remainder of the novel is, in Druce's view, "a pastiche of an adventure story" of the likes of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond or Leslie Charteris's Saint stories.

Themes

Academic Christoph Linder sees Thunderball as part of the second wave of Bond villains: the first wave consisted of SMERSH, the second of Blofeld and SPECTRE, undertaken because of the thawing of relations between East and West, although the cold war escalated again shortly afterwards, with the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis all occurring in an eighteen-month period from April 1961 to November 1962. The introduction of SPECTRE and its use over several books gives a measure of continuity to the remaining stories in the series, according to academic Jeremy Black. Black argues that SPECTRE represents "evil unconstrained by ideology" and it partly came about because the decline of the British Empire led to a lack of certainty in Fleming's mind. This is reflected in Bond's using US equipment and personnel in the novel, such as the Geiger counter and nuclear submarine.

Release and reception

Publication history

The title of the book will be Thunderball. It is immensely long, immensely dull and only your jacket can save it!

Ian Fleming, in a letter to cover artist Richard Chopping

Thunderball was published on 27 March 1961 in the UK as a hardcover edition by publishers Jonathan Cape; it was 253 pages long and cost 15 shillings. 50,938 copies were printed and quickly sold out. Thunderball was published in the US by Viking Press and sold better than any of the previous Bond books. Publishers Jonathan Cape spent £2,000 on advance publicity. Cape sent out 130 review copies to critics and others and 32,000 copies of the novel had been sent to 864 UK booksellers and 603 outside the UK.

Artist Richard Chopping once again provided the cover art for the novel. On 20 July 1960 Fleming wrote to Chopping to ask if he could undertake the art for the next book, agreeing on a fee of 200 guineas, saying that "I will ask [Jonathan Cape] to produce an elegant skeleton hand and an elegant Queen of Hearts. As to the dagger, I really have no strong views. I had thought of the ordinary flick knife as used by teenagers on people like you and me, but if you have a nice dagger in mind please let us use it."

In 2023 Ian Fleming Publications—the company that administers all Fleming's literary works—had the Bond series edited as part of a sensitivity review to remove or reword some racial or ethnic descriptors. The rerelease of the series was for the 70th anniversary of Casino Royale, the first Bond novel. – "The ethnicity of a barman in Thunderball is similarly omitted in new editions"

Critical reception

Thunderball was generally well received by the critics; Francis Iles, wrote in The Guardian that it "is a good, tough, straightforward thriller on perfectly conventional lines". Referring to the negative publicity that surrounded Dr. No—in particular the article by Paul Johnson in the New Statesman entitled, "Sex, Snobbery and Sadism"—Iles was left "wondering what all the fuss is about", noting that "there is no more sadism nor sex than is expected of the author of this kind of thriller". Peter Duval Smith, writing in Financial Times, also took the opportunity to defend Fleming's work against negative criticism and specifically named Johnson and his review: "one should not make a cult of Fleming's novels: a day-dream is a day-dream; but nor should one make the mistake of supposing he does not know what he is doing." Duval Smith thought that Thunderball was "an exciting story [...] skilfully told", with "a romantic sub-plot ... and the denouement involves great events" He also considered it "the best written since Diamonds Are Forever, four books back. It has pace and humour and style. The violence is not so unrelenting as usual: an improvement, I think." He also expressed concern for the central character, saying "I was glad to see him [Bond] in such good form. Earlier he seemed to be softening up. He was having bad hangovers on half-a-bottle of whisky a day, which I don't call a lot, unless he wasn't eating properly."

Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Philip John Stead thought that Fleming "continues uninhibitedly to deploy his story-telling talents within the limits of the Commander Bond formula". Stead saw that the hijacking of the two bombs "gives Bond some anxiety but, needless to say, does not prevent him from having a good deal of fun in luxury surroundings", whilst "the usual beatings-up, modern style, are ingeniously administered to lady and gentleman like". As to why the novels were so appealing, Stead considered that "Mr. Fleming's special magic lies in his power to impart sophistication to his mighty nonsense; his fantasies connect with up-to-date and lively knowledge of places and of the general sphere of crime and espionage." Overall, in Stead's opinion, with Thunderball "the mixture, exotic as ever, generates an extravagant and exhilarating tale and Bond connoisseurs will be glad to have it." The critic for The Times wrote that Thunderball "relies for its kicks far less than did Dr. No or Goldfinger on sadism and a slightly condescending sophistication." The upshot, in the critic's opinion, was that "the mixture—of good living, sex and violent action—is as before, but this is a highly polished performance, with an ingenious plot well documented and plenty of excitement."

Writing in The Washington Post, Harold Kneeland noted that Thunderball was "Not top Fleming, but still well ahead of the pack", while Charles Poore, writing in The New York Times considered the Bond novels to be "post-Dostoevskian ventures in crime and punishment". Thunderball he found to be "a mystery story, a thriller, a chiller and a pleasure to read." Poore identified aspects of the author's technique to be part of the success, saying "the suspense and the surprises that animate the novel arise from the conceits with which Mr. Fleming decorates his tapestry of thieving and deceiving".

The critic from The Sunday Times considered Fleming to have "a sensational imagination, but informed by style, zest and—above all—knowledge". Anthony Boucher wrote: "As usual, Ian Fleming has less story to tell in 90,000 words than Buchan managed in 40,000; but Thunderball is still an extravagant adventure". The critic for the Daily Herald implored "Hey!—that man is taking his clothes off again. So is the girl ... Can anybody stop this? Unfortunately not. Not this side of the best-seller lists. I don't envy Mr Bond's wealthy creator, Ian Fleming. I wish I could pity him", while L.G. Offord considered Thunderball to be "just about as wild as ever, with a walloping climax."

Adaptations

Main articles: James Bond comic strips, Thunderball (film), and Never Say Never Again

A comic strip adaptation was published daily in The Daily Express newspaper and syndicated worldwide, beginning on 11 December 1961. The owner of the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook, cancelled the strip on 10 February 1962 after Fleming signed an agreement with The Sunday Times for them to publish the short story "The Living Daylights". The Thunderball strip was reprinted in 2005 by Titan Books as part of the Dr. No anthology that also includes Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia, with Love.

In 1965 the film Thunderball was released, starring Sean Connery as Bond. It was the fourth Eon Productions film and, as well as listing Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman as producers, McClory was also included in the production team. Broccoli and Saltzman made a deal with McClory to undertake a joint production of Thunderball, which stopped McClory from making any further version of the novel for a period of ten years following the release of the Eon-produced version. Kevin McClory produced Never Say Never Again—a version of the Thunderball story—in 1983, with Connery as Bond. In the 1990s McClory announced plans to make another adaptation of the Thunderball story, Warhead 2000 AD, with Timothy Dalton or Liam Neeson in the lead role, but this was eventually dropped.

From Production of the James Bond films
MGM launched a $25 million lawsuit against Sony, and McClory claimed a portion of the $3 billion profits from the Bond series. After a prolonged lawsuit, Sony backed down, and McClory eventually exhausted all legal avenues to pursue. As part of the settlement, MGM paid $10 million for the rights to Casino Royale, which had come into Sony's possession.

See also

• List of James Bond novels and short stories
• Outline of James Bond
• The Battle for Bond

Notes and references

Sources

Books

• Amis, Kingsley (1966). The James Bond Dossier. London: Pan Books. OCLC 154139618.
• Bennett, Tony; Woollacott, Janet (1987). Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-4160-1361-0.
• Bennett, Tony; Woollacott, Janet (2009). "The Moments of Bond". In Lindner, Christoph (ed.). The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
• Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-1-8528-3233-9.
• Besly, Edward (1997). Loose Change: A Guide to Common Coins and Medals. Cardiff: National Museum Wales. ISBN 978-0-7200-0444-1.
• Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: from Fleming's Novel to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
• Butler, William Vivian (1973). The Durable Desperadoes. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-14217-2.
• Chancellor, Henry (2005). James Bond: The Man and His World. London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6815-2.
• Druce, Robert (1992). This Day our Daily Fictions: An Enquiry into the Multi-Million Bestseller Status of Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 978-9-0518-3401-7.
• Eco, Umberto (2009). "The Narrative Structure of Ian Fleming". In Lindner, Christoph (ed.). The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
• Fleming, Fergus (2015). The Man with the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming's James Bond Letters. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-6328-6489-5.
• Fleming, Ian (1961). Thunderball. London: Jonathan Cape. OCLC 561010890.
• Fleming, Ian; Gammidge, Henry; McLusky, John (1988). Octopussy. London: Titan Books. ISBN 1-8528-6040-5.
• Fleming, Ian (2009). "Ian Fleming on Writing Thrillers". Devil May Care. By Faulks, Sebastian. London: Penguin Books. pp. 314–321. ISBN 978-0-1410-3545-1.
• Gilbert, Jon (2012). Ian Fleming: The Bibliography. London: Queen Anne Press. ISBN 978-0-9558-1897-4.
• Gilbert, Jon (2020). Ian Fleming & James Bond. Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Adrian Harrington. ISBN 978-0-9576-0411-7.
• Griswold, John (2006). Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4259-3100-1.
• Halloran, Vivian (2005). "Tropical Bond". In Comentale, Edward P.; Watt, Stephen; Willman, Skip (eds.). Ian Fleming and James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 158–177. ISBN 978-0-2533-4523-3.
• Hines, Claire (2018). The Playboy and James Bond: 007, Ian Fleming and Playboy Magazine. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-8226-9.
• Ladenson, Elisabeth (2003). "Pussy Galore". In Lindner, Christoph (ed.). The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
• Lindner, Christoph (2009). The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
• Lycett, Andrew (1996). Ian Fleming. London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-1-8579-9783-5.
• Macintyre, Ben (2008). For Your Eyes Only. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7475-9527-4.
• McLusky, John; Gammidge, Henry; Hern, Anthony; Fleming, Ian (2009). The James Bond Omnibus Vol.1. London: Titan Books. ISBN 978-1-84856-364-3.
• Panek, LeRoy (1981). The Special Branch: The British Spy Novel, 1890–1980. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-8797-2178-7.
• Parker, Matthew (2014). Goldeneye. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 978-0-0919-5410-9.
• Pearson, John (1966). The Life of Ian Fleming: Creator of James Bond. London: Jonathan Cape. OCLC 441370610.
• Sellers, Robert (2008). The Battle for Bond. Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Tomahawk Press. ISBN 978-0-9557-6700-5.

• Burgess, Anthony (1984). 99 Novels. The Best in English Since 1939: A Personal Choice. London: Summit Books. ISBN 978-0-671-52407-4.
• Lyttelton, George; Hart-Davis, Rupert (1979). Lyttelton–Hart-Davis Letters. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-3673-1.
• Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (2001). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: The Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. London: Batsford Books. ISBN 978-0-7134-8182-2.
• Chapman, James (2009). Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films. New York: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-515-9.
• Simpson, Paul (2002). The Rough Guide to James Bond. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-84353-142-5.

Inflation calculations

• 1634–1699: McCusker, John J. (January 1996a). "How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 106 (2): 327–334.
• 1700–1799: McCusker, John J. (October 1996b). "How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States" (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 106 (2): 327–334.
• 1800–present: "Consumer Price Index, 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved 22 April 2024.

Journals and magazines

• Biddulph, Edward (June 2009). "'Bond Was Not a Gourmet': An Archaeology of James Bond's Diet". Food, Culture & Society. 12 (2): 131–149. doi:10.2752/155280109X368688. ISSN 1552-8014.
• Sternberg, Meir (1983). "Knight Meets Dragon in the James Bond Saga: Realism and Reality-Models". Style. 17 (2): 142–180. JSTOR 42945465.

News

• Duval Smith, Peter (30 March 1961). "No Ethical Frame". Financial Times. p. 20.
• Iles, Francis (7 April 1961). "Criminal Records". The Guardian. p. 7.
• Kneeland, Harold (11 June 1961). "MI-5's James Bond and Other Sleuths". The Washington Post. p. E7.
• "Law Report, March 24". The Times. 25 March 1961. p. 12.
• Macintyre, Ben (5 April 2008a). "Bond – the Real Bond". The Times. p. 36.
• "New Fiction". The Times. 30 March 1961. p. 15.
• Poore, Charles (4 July 1961). "Books of the Times". The New York Times. p. 17.
• Rye, Graham (7 December 2006). "Kevin McClory". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 5 September 2011.
• Sellers, Robert (30 December 2007). "'James Bond Would have Shot the Judge'". The Sunday Times. p. 10.
• Simpson, Craig (25 February 2023). "James Bond Books Edited to Remove Racist References". The Sunday Telegraph. Archived from the original on 25 February 2023.
• Stead, Philip John (31 March 1961). "Mighty Nonsense". The Times Literary Supplement. p. 206.
• Symons, Julian (26 March 1961). "Enough to Make Sapper Turn Over...". The Sunday Times. p. 27.

Websites

• Clark, Gregory (2023). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
• "Ian Fleming's James Bond Titles". Ian Fleming Publications. Archived from the original on 10 August 2015. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
• McKeown, M. Margaret (27 August 2001). "Danjaq et al. v. Sony Corporation et al" (PDF). United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2006.