Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in London on 28th May 1908, the second of four brothers. He was educated at Eton College and then abroad in Germany and Austria.

After an early career at Reuters news agency, he became a stockbroker.

During World War 2 he worked throughout as assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence in the Admiralty in London, privy to many secrets. It was his experience in this job that was to provide many of the characters and incidents that he was to write about later in the Bond books.

Following the war he became foreign manager, in charge of foreign correspondents, for Kemsley newspapers, owners of the Sunday Times and other papers.

But his creative imagination remained under wraps until 1952, when, at the age of 43, he settled down in his house in Jamaica, and produced – in not much more than two months – "Casino Royale," the first adventure of James Bond.

He published a further thirteen James Bond titles and lived to witness their enormous success, and having seen his character played by Sean Connery in the first two films, "Dr No" and "From Russia with Love."

He married Anne Rothermere in 1952 and in August that year his only son, Caspar, was born. While convalescing from his first heart attack in 1962, he wrote a short story about a flying car for Caspar – "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

Ian Fleming died, aged 56, on 12th August 1964 at Sandwich in Kent.

Source: IanFleming.com
December 22, 2013