7 replies to this topic

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.dailymail...s_campaign=1490

http://www.telegraph...etch-80000.html

Edited by quantumofsolace, 01 December 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[Revelator]

Hope this doesn't disappear forever after it's sold. This sort of document belongs in the Fleming collection in Indiana.

[Major Tallon]

Indeed it does, though I'll point out that the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana also has a manuscript of Diamonds Are Forever.  That manuscript has been re-written and corrected extensively.  My notes on that manuscript extend to 59 pages of single-space typing.  The Lilly manuscript is on legal-sized paper and is bound, consistent with the other manuscripts in the Lilly Fleming collection.  The manuscript shown in the present newspaper accounts appears to be on letter-sized paper.  The handwriting on the manuscript currently being auctioned appears to me to be indisputably Ian Fleming's, as I've seen a lot of it over the years, and I don't doubt the current manuscript's authenticity.  The copies reproduced in the current newspaper articles are too small to compare with the Lilly manuscript and with the final published text, but most of the Lilly manuscript pages were more thoroughly marked up, and it's my guess (though I obviously can't tell for sure) that what's being auctioned now is a second manuscript, incorporating Fleming's corrections of the first manuscript, and reflecting an additional number of corrections and revisions in Fleming's handwriting. 

 

For what it's worth, here are a very few of the differences between the original manuscript and the final published version:  1)  Tiffany was in Room 500 of the Trafalgar Palace Hotel; 2)  the gangsters were part of the Vermillion Outfit; 3)  at Saratoga, Bond was to back a horse named "Sonofawitch;" 5)  the gangland chief disguised his identity behind the name "The Seraph," and it took a while to sort out that this was one of the Spang brothers; 6)  The hit team consisted of Windy Wint and Boofy Gore, elsewhere called Boofuls Gore, whose name was listed on his luggage tag as B. Gorham; 7) Chapter 13 had the following thought from Bond at Acme Mud and Sulfur:  "Bond liked the negro races but something in him objected to the idea of close physical contact with them and he knew that anthropologists were agreed that the revulsion was mutual."  Fleming deleted this line as part of the first edit; 8) The manuscript's final line was:  "And as Bond climbed stiffly down to the ground and walked slowly toward the [illegible] his tired mind went back to the cabin in the Queen Mary [sic] and to Tiffany Case."  Obviously, the final published version was better.

[Revelator]

Fascinating stuff Major, thank you. Fleming certainly made the right decision in deleting that odd line from chapter 13. From this and your other posts it's clear that you've closely researched Fleming's manuscripts--have your findings and notes been published in print or online? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would avidly read them.

[Dustin]

I second that, intriguing stuff.

[Major Tallon]

I have never published my notes from my multiple visits to the Lilly Library.  There would, I fear, be serious copyright issues with publishing what would in effect be alternative versions (and inferior alternative versions, at that) of the Fleming novels.  I strongly doubt that IFP would ever give consent.  A commentary or analytical treatment might be possible, but it would probably have to be of book length.  My friend Orlandobond has suggested that I write it, and Mrs. Tallon has stopped just short of being insistent.  The amount of work would be considerable, and I'm not sure there's much of a market.  Let's just say it's a possibility.

[glidrose]

Fantastic article. Fantastic work Major Tallon!

[zencat]

Sold for £97,250.

 

http://www.thebookbo...ript-sells.html