Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. His novels centre on horse racing in England. After wartime Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey of the British National Hunt. Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter,... Read More
Dick Francis "has simply never failed. Every one of his opening sentences pulls the reader in and doesn't let go until the last, perfect word," according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Dick Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned. The book's success led to... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer, and former steeplechase jockey, whose novels centre on horse racing in England. Dick Francis left school at 15 without any qualifications, intending to become a jockey; by the time he was 18, in 1938, he also was training horses. Francis became a highly successful jockey, reaching celebrity status in the world of British National Hunt racing.... Read More
Dick Francis, once Champion Jockey himself, is famous for his many bestselling thrillers set in the world of horse-racing. After wartime Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey of the British National Hunt. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned. The book's... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. His novels centre on horse racing in England. During the Second World War, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter... Read More
John Edmund Gardner was an English spy and thriller novelist, best known for his James Bond continuation novels, but also for his series of Boysie Oakes books and three continuation novels containing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional villain, Professor Moriarty. Gardner went on to write over fifty works of fiction, including fourteen original James Bond novels, and the novel versions of two Bo... Read More
An English art historian, novelist and journalist Iain George Pears was born on 8 August 1955 in Coventry, England. He was educated at Warwick School, an all-boys public school in Warwick, and studied at Wadham College, Oxford. Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 and ZDF in Germany. Pears first came to international prominence with his best selling book An Instance of... Read More
An English novelist, playwright, and short story writer William Wilkie Collins was born at 11 New Cavendish Street, Marylebone, London, the son of a well-known Royal Academician landscape painter, William Collins and his wife, Harriet Geddes. A skilful manipulator of intricate plots, Collins is remembered as a principal founder of English detective fiction. His novels of intrigue and suspense,... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. He was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917. As an infant, he briefly lived, with his fami... Read More
Ian Fleming, in full Ian Lancaster Fleming, was a suspense-fiction novelist whose character James Bond, the stylish, high-living British secret service agent 007, who became one of the most successful and widely imitated heroes of 20th-century popular fiction. The son of a Conservative MP and the grandson of a Scottish banker, Fleming was born into a family of wealth and privilege. He was educa... Read More
There's nothing like a good spy thriller to get your imagination running wild. And perhaps no one was better able to give his readers such a trip as the legendary Ian Fleming. Indeed, the titular hero of his James Bond series of books started out as an intentionally flat character, someone onto whom readers could project a more complex identity. Fleming said of his work, "while thrillers may no... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer. Born on May 28, 1908, Ian Fleming would go on to create the most enduring literary figure since Sherlock Holmes. Rare book collectors are fascinated with the legacy of Ian Fleming and James Bond. Ian Fleming named James Bond after an ornithologist because it was the ‘dullest name’ he’d ever heard. The origin... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. William Cook in the New Statesman considered James Bond to be "the culmination of an important but much-maligned tradition in English literature. As a boy, Fleming devoured the Bulldog Drummond tales of Lieutenant Colonel H. C. McNeile and the Richard... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. In 1914 Fleming attended Durnford School, a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. He did not enjoy his time at Durnford; he suffered unpalatable food, physical hardship and bullying. In May 1939 Fleming was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intellig... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer. He was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917. From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming is a novel centred around the infamous British MI5 spy, James Bond... Read More
Moonraker is the third novel by Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. According to the author Raymond Benson, Moonraker is a deeper and more introspective book than Fleming's previous work, which allows the author to develop the characters further. In Moonraker, Millionaire Hugo Drax cheats at cards, the highest offence in polite English society. Special... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond novels. The Bond books were written in post-war Britain when the country was still an imperial power. As the series progressed, the British Empire was in decline; journalist William Cook observed that "Bond pandered to Britain's inflated and increasingly insecure self-imag... Read More
Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors. The first US edition of Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale was published with the title ‘You Asked for It’; it took a few... Read More
Sebastian Charles Faulks is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was born on 20 April 1953 and was educated at Wellington College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Sebastian Faulks was the first literary editor of The Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. In 1989 he published The Girl at the Lion d'Or, th... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, ten miles south of Inverness. While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story "Dileas". The publishing company Collins asked him for a... Read More