ian fleming the spy who loved me first edition

This book is lucky I didn’t throw it across the room in frustration. It prompted him to write ‘a cautionary tale about Bond, to put the record straight in the minds particularly of younger readers’.“Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it.” At the time, Fleming was concerned to learn that his books were being read in schools and that children saw Bond as an unequivocal hero.

Yet Fleming, always aware of the complexities and darker shades of Bond’s character, also takes care to highlight and challenge the ruthlessness of his secret agent. The reader experiences Bond as Vivienne does, witnessing his cool demeanour and detached efficiency – as well as his charm – as he takes control to save the day. For readers it offers a fascinating look at the social mores and sexual politics of the early 1960s, as well as an unprecedented viewpoint of Fleming’s celebrated hero. Told entirely from the perspective of Vivienne Michel, a young single woman suddenly thrown into a fight for her life, The Spy Who Loved Me is a unique addition to the series, where James Bond himself appears only as a secondary character. You take a wrong step, play the wrong card in Fate’s game, and you are in it and lost – lost in a world you had never imagined, against which you have no knowledge and no weapons. The true jungle of the world, with its real monsters, only rarely shows itself in the life of a man, a girl, in the street.

His narrative pulls with the smooth power of Bond’s Thunderbird’ See the other titles in our Ian Fleming Collection here. In an unusual move by the author, this short introduction suggests that the manuscript had been left on his desk by Vivienne Michel, the character who narrates the book. For this edition we have also reintroduced Fleming’s original prologue, which had been removed from all modern editions of the text. This edition features a smart binding inspired by the agent’s suits, and a series of exquisitely glamorous – and daring – illustrations by series artist Fay Dalton. Observed by a woman who finds him both frightening and alluring, Bond is exposed in a way that the reader has never seen before – making The Spy Who Loved Me an essential read for anyone wishing to get under the skin of the famous secret agent. The latest volume in Folio’s celebrated Bond collection features a unique twist: for the first and only time in the series, we witness the agent’s adventures through the eyes of another character.

Ian fleming the spy who loved me first edition