Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Len Deighton launches attack on Ian Fleming's heirs
As centenary of James Bond's creator approaches, a new book detailing his 1963 plagiarism case is itself the subject of a legal dispute.


The author Len Deighton has condemned the family of James Bond author Ian Fleming, accusing them of censorship and "bad taste".
The Fleming family, one of the richest in Britain thanks to its merchant banking history, is gearing up for the centenary of Fleming's birth on Wednesday with the publication of Devil May Care, the much-anticipated new Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks.

Three weeks later, however, family members will be bracing themselves for the publication of the new edition of The Battle for Bond, a book about the now infamous 1963 plagiarism trial over the authorship of Thunderball.
The book was scheduled for publication last year, but the Fleming family forced publishers to pulp the first edition. In the foreword to the reprinted book, seen by The Independent on Sunday, Deighton delivers a damning verdict on the beneficiaries of the James Bond author's estate.
Deighton, most famous for The Ipcress File, writes: "How Ian Fleming would have hated to know that this book had been censored ... As a gentleman he would have felt that harassing a fellow author to be the ultimate demonstration of bad taste."

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