Author Profile: David Leigh

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, on April 13th 1953. Ian Fleming had written the book in 1952 while spending the winter at Goldeneye, his home in Jamaica, and just 4,728 copies were printed. The initial printing quickly sold out and today copies complete with original […]

MI6 has today published a review of the second edition of my book “The Complete Guide to the Drinks of James Bond”, which is available from Amazon as a paperback or for Kindle. Read MI6’s review here or you can read more about it here, which includes links to Lulu and various locaised Amazon stores.

To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale, which is marked on April 13th, “Fine Books and Collections” magazine features an article titled “The Birth of Bond” and has a photograph of Ian Fleming on the cover. You can buy a copy from the magazine’s website, which you can find here. Source: […]

Just a few days prior to the publication of Thunderball Ian Fleming received the shock news that Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sought an injunction preventing publication. McClory had read an advance copy of the novel in March 1961 and was infuriated to see that Fleming had based the story on a screenplay written by […]

Being James Bond have published an interesting article about M’s name, following the revelation of the name of Judi Dench’s M at the end of Skyfall. The article notes that M’s full name was not revealed by Ian Fleming until The Man With The Golden Gun, his last novel, but takes us through each incarnation […]

“Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style”, which was originally at The Barbican and later moved to Toronto, has just opened in Shanghai’s Minsheng Art Museum. The exhibition includes 600 items from Eon Productions’ 23 James Bond films including the hugely successful Skyfall. Source: Wall Street Journal

Most readers should be familiar with the plotline of the fourth James Bond movie, Thunderball (1965), which centres around the theft of two atomic bombs following the hijacking of an RAF Vulcan bomber on a training exercise. Of course, in the book the aircraft was a Villiers Vindicator, a fictional experimental plane and later, when […]

A new James Bond fragrance was launched in Monaco at an event last week to which the media was in strong attendance with by former Bond girl Caterina Murino in attendance. The James Bond Dossier featured the fragrance, called Ocean Royale, as a news item a couple of weeks ago, which is said to be […]

The new Range Rover Sport was unveiled by Daniel Craig in New York earlier this week at a media event ahead of the New York International Auto Show. There had been some speculation that Craig would parachute into the event, similar to his arrival at the Olympics, but in the end that was not the […]

Thanks to the overwhelming response to MI6 Confidential’s first ‘Art of Bond’ special, the magazine has once again opened the archives for more rarely seen art, photography, covers and concept work from the films, books and games. Issues of this kind capture the work of a variety artists and contributors to the Bond canon, many […]

Back in October on the morning of the Skyfall premiere I interviewed Jon Gilbert of Adrian Harrington Rare Books about his Ian Fleming bibliography for MI6. Only that morning had he taken delivery of the books and so for an hour or so we sat and talked about Ian Fleming and the world of James […]

A bottle of a rare Scotch whisky that appeared in Skyfall and signed by the cast is to be auctioned to raise money for former and serving members of GCHQ. The bottle of The Macallan 1962 is signed by Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Bérénice Marlohe and was seen on screen in the scene where […]

Last week I saw that James Bond Memes blogger, Edward Biddulph, was selling his first edition of Casino Royale, which he announced on Twitter. I’ve been in contact with Edward soon after buying his book, Licence To Cook, after which he contributed a number of articles to this website and I later met him in London […]

Skyfall picked up more awards on Sunday night when the red carpet was laid for the Jameson Empire Awards on Sunday night at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. As well as picking up the award for best picture Sam Mendes was named best director and also picked up the Empire Inspiration award. Source: Empire […]

Skyfall screenwriter John Logan recently spoke to the Telegraph about his play “Peter and Alice” with Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw. While the focus of the article is about the play and his work in theatre, Logan also talks briefly about Skyfall and says that for Bond 24 and 25 he has lots of ideas […]

Trumpeter Derek Watkins, who played on every single James Bond soundtrack, died yesterday according to David Arnold on twitter. Arnold went on to pay tribute to him both as a musician and a person, saying he “could hit notes others couldn’t get near” and calling him “a lovely man”. Watkins featured on a video released […]

Royal Dalton’s “Jack” bulldog figurine that appeared in Skyfall is back in stock and selling for £50. Jack is based on an iconic bulldog, originally modelled by Royal Doulton’s great art director Charles Noke in 1941. An original Jack features on M’s desk in the 23rd James Bond Movie, Skyfall. Buy direct from Royal Doulton […]

First editions of Ian Fleming’s books are beyond the price range of most 007 fans and collectors, but anyone looking for a first edition copy of Casino Royale to add to their collection should check a current auction on eBay. The seller, Edward Biddulph, who wrote the James Bond cookbook Licence To Cook and has […]

HMSS Weblog sifts through the evidence from all parties involved in the James Bond films and concludes that Bond 24 won’t be released until 2015, despite various suggestions from some of the parties involved that there would be a two year gap.  What some of those parties didn’t seem to understand was where the real […]

Some time ago I was thinking about why it is that so many fans of James Bond dislike the continuation novels. While the Bond community seems to look forward to their release, they always seem to meet with a tepid reception and, sometimes, outright hostility. What brought this to mind was that I was re-reading […]