'Extraordinary'
letters between Ian Fleming and wife to be sold
More than
160 letters written over 20 years shine light on James Bond author’s life
Mark Brown
Arts correspondent
Mon 11 Nov
2019 20.01 GMTLast modified on Mon 11 Nov 2019 20.30 GMT
An
extraordinary stash of letters that shine a light on the tangled relationship
between the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, and his wife, Ann, from their
intense and secret affair to the bitter end of their marriage, are to appear at
auction.
Sotheby’s
is selling more than 160 letters between the couple, written over 20 years.
Gabriel Heaton, a specialist in books and manuscripts at the auction house,
said the letters in their scope and scale provided what “must surely be an
unmatchable record of the life of the author as his fortunes changed”.
They also
provide insight into the rise of Bond. Heaton said it was no coincidence that
Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in the year of his marriage.
It was
“both as an outlet for his libido and imagination, and also in an attempt to
make money for a woman who was used to being unthinkingly rich”.
Ann
Fleming, née Charteris, was born into the aristocracy and married wealthy men.
Her first husband was Shane O’Neill, the 3rd Baron O’Neill. After his death in
military action in 1944, she married the newspaper magnate Esmond Harmsworth,
the 2nd Viscount Rothermere.
During both
marriages she and Fleming were lovers, an intense relationship that had
sado-masochistic elements. “I long for you even if you whip me because I love
being hurt by you and kissed afterwards,” Ann once wrote to Fleming.
In 1948 Ann
became pregnant with Fleming’s child, a girl who was a month premature and
lived only eight hours. The collection includes a number of sad and gentle
letters written by Fleming on Gleneagles stationery shortly after he played
golf with Rothermere, the cuckolded husband.
In one
letter he writes: “I have nothing to say to comfort you. After all this travail
and pain it is bitter. I can only send you my arms and my love and all my
prayers.”
Fleming had
numerous flings and affairs with other women and when the couple finally
married in 1952 that was never likely to stop.
Ann once
wrote to him: “You mention ‘bad old bachelor days’ – the only person you
stopped sleeping with when they ceased was me!”
A letter
from Fleming written on British Overseas Airways Corporation stationery reads:
“In the present twilight, we are hurting each other to an extent that makes
life hardly bearable.”
Heaton said
the letters were packed with stories of high society, travel, love of nature
and gossip.
“They are
quite something, it has been a real treat,” he said. “They are an extraordinary
read because Ian Fleming is pretty much incapable of writing a dull sentence.”
Fleming
wrote all of the Bond novels at GoldenEye, his house in Jamaica, a place visited
by many of Ann’s remarkable circle of friends. The artist Lucian Freud, for
example, and the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, with whom she had a long affair.
There were
also surprising visitors. “Truman Capote has come to stay,” Fleming writes.
“Can you imagine a more incongruous playmate for me. On the heels of a telegram
he came hustling and twittering along with his tiny face crushed under a
Russian Commissars’ uniform hat [...] he had just arrived from Moscow.”
The letters
consist of more than 500 typed and handwritten pages, at least three written on
endpapers torn from books. Two of the letters from Ann are written on the back
of a gin rummy card and a hospital temperature chart.
They will
be offered in Sotheby’s online literature sale between 3 and 10 December and
come with an estimate of £200,000-300,000.
It was
important to keep them together, said Heaton. “They are much more than the sum
of their parts, the correspondence as a whole is far more substantial and
interesting and revealing and exciting than simply an accumulation of
individual letters.”
Ann
Geraldine Mary Fleming (née Charteris, 19 June 1913 – 12 July 1981), previously
known as Lady O'Neill and Viscountess Rothermere, was a British socialite. She
married firstly Lord O'Neill, secondly Lord Rothermere, and finally the writer
Ian Fleming. She also had affairs with the Labour Party politicians Roy Jenkins
and Hugh Gaitskell.
Life
Fleming was
born to Frances Lucy Tennant (1887–1925) and Captain Guy Lawrence Charteris
(1886–1967) in Westminster, London on 19 June 1913. She was the eldest daughter
and her grandfather was Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss. She learnt to
value conversation and friendship from her grandmother, Mary Constance
Charteris, Countess of Wemyss,[1] who had her own hedonistic past, having been
one of The Souls.
She was
educated by governesses after an unsuccessful term at Cheltenham Ladies'
College. She had a good understanding of literature but her future was to be a
debutante and she quickly married Lord O'Neill who was both an aristocrat and a
financier in 1932. She had two children before beginning an affair with the
influential Esmond Cecil Harmsworth in 1936.
Harmsworth
was the heir to Lord Rothermere, who owned the Daily Mail. Her husband went to
war and Ann appeared with Harmsworth as well as having an affair with Ian
Fleming, then a stockbroker, who became an assistant to the Director of Naval
Intelligence. In 1940, Harmsworth became Lord Rothermere. Her husband was
killed in action in 1944 and she married Lord Rothermere in 1945.
The couple
entertained and their social circle included the painter Lucian Freud (who
painted her portrait), the choreographer Frederick Ashton and the artist
Francis Bacon. Meanwhile, Ian Fleming left the navy and became a journalist
with The Sunday Times. He had built Goldeneye on land in Jamaica and he had demanded
three-month vacations from his employer to enjoy his holiday home. The two
spent three months of every year together in Jamaica; her new husband thought
she was in Jamaica to visit Noël Coward.
In 1951 she
was divorced by Lord Rothermere, and the following year she married Fleming.
They had one child, Caspar. Ann was pregnant with her son when they married; he
was born on 12 August 1952. Anxiety over his forthcoming marriage is said to be
the reason that Ian Fleming wrote the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale.
Ann had a £100,000 divorce settlement and Fleming sought additional sources of
revenue to add to his salary from The Sunday Times. The book and its sequels
were immediate successes.
The
Flemings bought a house in London, where they entertained. They later rebuilt
Warneford Place at Sevenhampton, near Swindon, renaming it Sevenhampton Place
and moving there in 1963. Her husband was not keen on the socialising, but
their houses attracted Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly and Peter Quennell, and she
had affairs with Hugh Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins.
Her son
Caspar died in London in October 1975 from an overdose of narcotics. Ann
Fleming died at Sevenhampton Place on 12 July 1981. Both were buried alongside
Ian at the church of St James in Sevenhampton.
Drugs, guns
and the torment of his only son: As James Bond author Ian Fleming's life is
dramatized, the TRUE story of his family proves just as fascinating
Bond author
Ian Fleming's son Caspar killed himself aged 23
Fleming
wrote Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang to his young son
Ian Fleming
died of a heart attack on Caspar's 12th birthday
One of
Caspar Fleming’s favourite places in all the world was Shane’s Castle, a ruin
steeped in legend on the shores of Lough Neagh in County Antrim.
The castle
and its 1,800-acre estate is the family seat of the illustrious O’Neill family;
Caspar — the only son of James Bond creator Ian Fleming — was, through his
mother, Lord O’Neill’s half-brother. During a visit in September 1975, Caspar
would venture out each day, searching for old arrowheads from battles fought
long ago.
To the
outside world, he seemed in high spirits. Yet, at that point, he had almost
certainly made the decision to kill himself. A week later, he returned to his
mother’s flat in Chelsea, wrote a short suicide note, took a massive quantity
of barbiturates and lay down to die. He passed away on October 2, 1975, aged
just 23.
Caspar
Fleming was a young man as brilliantly clever as he was tortured and, until
now, the full tale of his tragically short life has never been told.
The story
of his father Ian’s life is currently the focus of a new four-part TV drama,
Fleming. The plot of the Sky Atlantic show follows a familiar path: Fleming’s
glamorous life in London; the louche parties at GoldenEye, his Jamaican
retreat; his womanising and his predilection for being spanked by his lovers.
But
Caspar’s story is not so familiar to Bond aficionados. Ian Fleming’s name is
synonymous with 007, but few identify him with an equally famous story, Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang, about the car that could fly. That was the tale he wrote
especially for his son.
Any suicide
is unbearably sad, and Caspar’s left a deep wound within the Fleming family
that has never truly healed. Only now can the true story of what drove him to
commit such a desperate act be told.
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