“No, Bond’s an interesting fellow. He’s had a dreadful press of course and then the films – he’s not at all like that in real life. You’d like him. Perhaps you ought to meet him” (12).
John Pearson’s sole foray into the literary James Bond universe, The Authorised Biography of 007 (1973) is a fascinating, albeit slightly experimental, fourth wall-breaking account of James Bond. It purports to depict James Bond if he were a real person. This book is written under the notion that Ian Fleming was secretly in cahoots with M to create a string of fantastical “cloak-and-dagger thrillers,” similar to the Ewen Montagu story (“The Man Who Never Was”), in which the Secret Service sought to convince the Germans that “a mythical man was reality.” Only in Bond’s case, they are trying to convince SMERSH that Bond is merely a fictional character, not a real spy, thus throwing SMERSH off his trail. This daring piece of international deception makes the late Ian Fleming (who died in 1964) a critical player in James Bond’s adventures, his task being to create an over-the-top pulp adventure hero “like something out of Buchan.”
“…that whole business between you and Fleming and 007 is going to rank as one of the classic pieces of deception in our sort of work” (18, Urquhart, Pearson’s contact, speaking to M).
In the book, after publishing his biography of Ian Fleming, Pearson describes how he received a mysterious tip from a woman in Vienna named Maria Künzler who claimed she was once romantically involved with James Bond. Intrigued, Pearson starts tracking down the man through a string of letters, photographs, records at Eton, and so on, until Pearson is suddenly threatened by the British government to stop the investigation. But the Secret Service soon has an about-face, with several other writers also tracking down Bond and while the real Bond (now in his mid-fifties) has been experiencing a few “nasty scares” to his health. Apparently, it’s questionable as to whether or not he will be fit for service going forward so the Secret Service decides to have the “whole thing told responsibly.” Pearson is told: “If you agree, I’ll see that you have full cooperation from the department. You can see his colleagues. And, of course, I’ll make arrangements for you to meet Bond in person” (15). Apparently, Bond has recently experienced some sort of mental and physical crisis.
Pearson is flown out to Bermuda and ushered into a room overlooking the sea where he sits down for a series of interviews with the real James Bond in the flesh, a man who strikes Pearson as intriguing but “guarded and withdrawn” with pale grey eyes, and the famous scar down his left cheek. In the first of many metatextual moments in the novel, Bond confesses some dismay over Ian Fleming’s novels: “Quite frankly, I’d like to hang on to the few shreds of private life that Ian left me.”
The bulk of the novel drags a bit as Bond explains his wild youth and upbringing, filling in many of the gaps left behind in Bond’s obituary as described in You Only Live Twice (even though, as Pearson later stated in interviews, the Bond novels are not exactly internally consistent). Bond claims to be a native of Ruhr in a town called Waatenscheid near Essen on Armistice Day on November 11, 1920. He has German blood but his father Andrew was a highland Scot (the family lives in the Glencoe area) and his mother Monique Delacroix was Swiss. In a strange twist, Bond dismisses the idea that he is related to the Bonds of Bond Street as suggested in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bond describes his older brother Henry, his own tumultuous time at Eton which sees a “moody and withdrawn” Bond thrown out for sneaking away to meet a French girl, the half-sister of his friend “Burglar” Brinton (this is merely alluded to as “trouble” in the Fleming novels), and the unhappy marriage of his parents who experienced a mountain climbing accident in the alps which killed both of them (this was after Monique cheated on Andrew and apparently went insane). Bond is then taken in by Aunt Charmian. He recounts the story of losing his virginity in a Parisian brothel and when the woman in question stole his pocketbook, a brawl ensued, but Bond later had an affair with the manager Marthe de Brandt (one of her old lovers was Maddox, head of French division of the Secret Service). But Bond is approached and informed she is a traitor, both to him and the nation, and Bond is instructed to kill her. The two spend one last glorious day together, with Bond showering her with affection until she remarks: “Darling… I do hate being thirty. It’s so old. I can’t bear being old.” Bond replies, “You never will be” and while driving, he suddenly slams the gas pedal sending the car flying into the Seine. This is what caused his scar as it sent him crashing through the windshield, Marthe died instantly (though she is later revealed not to be the spy the Secret Service is looking for).
“Behind the cold mask of his face, he felt even older. When Marthe de Brandt died, something had died in him. All that he wanted now was action and the sort of life that Maddox offered” (85).
In The Authorised Biography of 007, James Bond is shown to be a romantic of sorts, always hoping to settle down with a woman but never quite making it possible. In a string of exposition-heavy memories, Bond recalls his war years, recounting numerous adventures, such as Bond learning to play cards by an expert named Esposito (Bond tests himself in Royale-les-Eaux under the alias of south African millionaire Peter Zwart and uncovers a cheating plot by a group of Roumanians, dubbed the “Luminous Reader” in which they use dark glasses to spot numbers written on the cards. This adventure saves the Bank of Monte Carlo and leads to Bond befriending Mathis). Bond also takes part in anti-Nazi work and a daring Turkish mission, among other adventures like the killing of Japanese cipher expert named Shingushi in New York City, the destruction of a refinery in northern France, a battle against Italian submarines off the coast of Egypt, or the killing of a man named Svenson in Stockholm. He also helps Jewish scientists escape from Switzerland. During this period, Bond describes how he and Fleming worked together in Naval Intelligence (they first met on a skiing trip in Kitzbühel, Austria) before Bond joined M’s newly constructed Double O program. There are many ups and downs as Bond has a brief falling out with M following an ill-fated American mission involving the death of a congressman’s wife in a plane crash, but later it is Ian Fleming who actually helps bring James Bond back into the fray with the Secret Service. Meanwhile, several early Double O agents are killed: 003, 008, and 0011.
Throughout the book Bond sleeps with numerous married women, but only a few ladies seem to loom large over his life: his first love Marthe (whom he was forced to kill), Tiffany Case (from Diamonds Are Forever, who leaves Bond for another man), the Countess Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo (whom he briefly marries at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service before she is also killed), a woman named Muriel who was once his fiancé, and Honeychile from Dr. No, who actually plays a prominent role in The Authorised Biography of 007. She has been married twice but now she and Bond are rekindling their romance, they even plan to be married by the end of the book, though when Pearson meets her, he says she is not exactly the “child of nature” that Fleming described in Dr. No. Funnily enough, many characters in the book like Honeychile confess that the books and movies are bit juvenile, she says Dr. No is a dreadful book. Similarly, James Bond disregards Fleming’s novels as mostly outrageous drivel, particularly Moonraker, which he claims is entirely a fabrication to convince SMERSH of the deceptive idea of “Superbond.”
As Bond recalls his various quests in Fleming’s novels, he describes many other wild adventures taking place between the books –travails in Jamaica (with Bond undercover as Da Silva to infiltrate tje Communist-aligned “Cult of the Goddess Kull”), tracking terrorists in Greece, assassinations in Helsinki (the killing of Oborin leads to SMERSH putting a hit out on Bond), hunting down a man named Heinkel in Budapest and Vienna, and in the end, the biggest twist ending is that Irma Bunt, Blofeld’s confidant, actually survived the Japanese castle detonation at the end of You Only Live Twice. She has now been constructing dangerous mutant rat creatures using steroids and radioactive treatment of genes. She has since disappeared from Australia and wants an extortion payment. The Secret Service solicits the service of James Bond, but he declines, claiming he and Honey are to be married. However, at the last minute, he shows up to catch his flight. John Pearson recounts Bond’s final words to him: “‘I’ve enjoyed our little chats,’ he said. ‘Hope that you didn’t find them all too tedious. There’s a lot I left out and a great deal more to come, if you’re still interested. When I get back we’ll meet and I’ll do my best to finish off the story’” (415). And the novel closes with Honeychile giving a nod to Bond’s infamous closing line in Casino Royale (“The bitch is dead”) with: “‘Well, that’s that,’ she said as she turned back to the Rolls, ‘the bastard’s gone’” (416).
The Authorised Biography of 007 is a wonderfully imaginative installment in the literary James Bond canon. It features cameos of many familiar characters like M, Bill Tanner, May (Bond’s housekeeper who is given the last name of “McGrath”), and Honeychile Ryder to name a few –and during the course of the interviews, Bond even confirms that he did, in fact, have a son named James with Kissy Suzuki in Japan as alluded to in You Only Live Twice. These and many other little terrific nuggets are offered for Bond fans, though one wonders what Fleming would have thought of this biography. Fleming had been Pearson’s boss on the “Atticus” column at The Sunday Times and he once dismissed his Bond novels to Pearson as mere “caviar for the public.” Was he being genuine or playful? Either way, The Authorised Biography of 007 is a charming homage to the world of Fleming’s James Bond (written by the man who once penned a biography of Fleming, as well), though I would only recommend The Authorised Biography of 007 to true Bond fans who have read the entirety of Fleming’s novels, since it enriches and expounds upon many of the characters and missions presented therein. Indeed, all of Fleming’s novels are referenced here with meticulous attention to detail (and even Kingsley Amis’s Colonel Sun is mentioned) but personally, I prefer the more self-contained Bond adventures in the canonical novels rather than this large exposition-heavy biography.
Pearson, John. James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007. Ian Fleming Publications, originally published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973 (republished in 2023 with an introduction by John Pearson’s son Mark Pearson). Dedicated to Lydia Pearson.
The book was published by Sidgwick & Jackson because Pearson knew Peter Janson-Smith, the chairman of Glidrose Publications (the company to which Fleming sold his literary rights). Glidrose was named after its founders John Gliddon and Norman Rose, and managed by Fleming’s literary agent Peter Janson-Smith until 2001. Glidrose was then renamed Ian Fleming Publications in 2002 and today it is managed by the Fleming family.
Note: For true devotees of the Bond continuation novels, I would recommend picking up a copy of Mark Edlitz’s James Bond After Fleming.