- Written by Ian Fleming [1,2]; edited by William Plomer [3,4]
- First (typewritten) draft completed by the end of February 1953 [5-6]
- Hard-cover novel of 240 pages published May 5, 1954 [7] by Jonathan Cape [8]
- Abridged version of 41 pages ran in May 1954 Bluebook Magazine [9]
- First U.S. printing published April 1955 [10] by The Macmillan Company [11]
- February 27, 2023 Statement on the Changes to the New Editions [12]
The Story
This was the second James Bond literary thriller. The action was set in January of 1952 {pages 7 and 16-17} [a], ie, early in the year immediately following that of Casino Royale.
“James Bond, now fully recovered from his lashing by Le Chiffre, is sent to Harlem to investigate Mr Big, a voodoo baron and unlikely SMERSH agent, whom M suspects is behind a smuggling operation that is funding Soviet agents in America …,” wrote Henry Chancellor in his summary for The Official Companion [13].
Bond goes up to Harlem to investigate with CIA agent Felix Leiter, only to be captured by Mr Big on arrival and quizzed by his [trapped], mind-reading girlfriend, Solitaire …. He rescues her, and together with Leiter they flee to Florida, …. Bond [subsequently] follows the trail to Jamaica alone …. There he completes a dangerous underwater swim to Mr Big’s island, and manages to plant a limpet mine on Big’s boat before being discovered. He is then captured, lectured, and bound to Solitaire behind Big’s boat. The pair are about to be fatally dragged over a shallow coral reef when Bond’s limpet mine explodes ….
Live and Let Die was hallmarked by its expertly unfolded race-against-the-clock sequence that began in Chapter XIX with the placement of the aforementioned explosive device {page 204}.
He looked at the Rolex watch on his wrist. It was three minutes past eleven o’clock [at night]. He selected the seven-hour fuse from the handful he extracted from a zippered side-pocket and inserted it in the fuse pocket of the mine and pushed it home ….
As he swam up, carrying the mine between his hands, … Bond was intent only on the centre of the ship’s keel and on a point about three feet above it.
The mine almost dragged him the last few feet, its huge magnets straining for the metallic kiss with the hull …. Then it was silently in place ….
Having noted that the mine was set to explode shortly after six o’clock in the morning, and whet the appetite of his readers to do their own calculation, Mr Fleming wrote that “Bond looked at his watch” for the last time on page 209. “It was half an hour after midnight.”
Keeping Time
There were a great many more references to watches in this second novel — and they variously played greater roles versus Casino Royale in providing tapestry to the tale. On the train with Solitaire in Chapter X, she “looked at her watch,” on page 100. With that, Bond “noted cynically that it was an expensive one [with] diamonds and platinum, Bond guessed.” He felt contempt for what was right before his eyes, as it appeared.
Later in the book, Our Man took note of “the stringy, collapsed chests and arms of the men displayed to the sunshine in Truman shirts” in Florida, on page 135. He further contemplated the “bony bald heads of the men. And, everywhere, a prattling camaraderie, a swapping of news and gossip, a making of folksy dates for the shuffleboard and the bridge-table, a handling of letters from children and grandchildren, a tut-tutting about prices in the shops and the motels.”
To all of that, then, Felix Leiter ascribed a type of watch as summary symbol: The presentation gold watch. After separation from the man for whom it would have appealed, by way of the undertaker, such watches inevitably ended up in “pawnshops stuffed with gold watches and masonic rings and bits of jet and lockets full of hair.”
Further, the most powerful character arc was told by a timekeeper.
In the first third of Live and Let Die, this watch was on the wrist of lead heavy “Mr Big,” present when henchman “Tee-Hee” mercilessly broke the little finger on the otherwise immobilized James Bond. Later, in the final two dozen pages of this thriller, it appeared once again, and accompanied the megalomaniacal rant of its wearer, on pages 218 and 219 — in what would become a signature element of these Ian Fleming fantasies.
‘So it is convenient that you should die together. That will happen, in an appropriate fashion,’ The Big Man looked at his watch, ‘in two and a half hours’ time. At six o’clock, give or take,’ he added, ‘a few minutes.’
‘Let’s give those minutes,’ said Bond ….
When that time had almost passed, Bond, himself, “stole a glance at Mr Big’s wrist watch. It said ten minutes to six” {page 227}. Then this story arc à la timekeeper was drawn to a close through the penultimate chapter, with one of the most cleverly written passages of the franchise {page 234}.
The body in the water jerked sideways. Half of The Big Man’s left arm came out of the water. It had no hand, no wrist, no wrist watch [emphasis added].
James Bond’s Watches
There were two different James Bond watches in Live and Let Die. Before anything else, it should be noted that this was arguably the first instance of the “multiple-watch” construct.
- watch #1
— Chapter I opened in the context of “moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There were assignments on which he was required to act the part of a very rich man … {page 7} [14]. This imagery was reinforced on through chapters that followed {eg, pages 9, 11, and 27}. Shortly after Ian Fleming passed away, contemporary Kingsley Amis wrote of the literary James Bond, “Clothes probably don’t make the man, but they can tell us a lot about him [15] …
Sea Island cotton shirt, tropical worsted trousers, black leather sandals for relaxing, dark blue alpaca suit with thin black knitted tie for ordinary purposes, Hong Kong pajamas — clothes we should like to wear … and would dare to ….
Bond as dresser, then, takes us in the direction of wish fulfillment without losing contact with what we commonly regard as real or likely.
— Whatever this “first wristwatch” of his mission had been, it was most certainly not the diving-capable timekeeper cited on page 204. However, if this watch were to be considered a survivor carried over from Casino Royale, it need not have been anything special to fit into the “luxury” environs with which Live and Let Die had opened [16].
- watch #2
— Live and Let Die is the first story where any James Bond watch brand was named. Without a doubt, that name was “Rolex” {page 204}. But it is the position of James Bond Watches that that diver was in fact a sort of pre-Radiomir Panerai [17]. This was also the last mention of either Bond watch in Live and Let Die.
Dispositions
What, then, ultimately came of these wristwatches?
- watch #1
— Based on the two-watch finding for this book, the first watch was switched-out for the diver provided by Q-Branch in Jamaica via Commander Strangways {page 192}. There is no reason to believe that it had not remained wherever it had been left for 007 to retrieve it after he and Solitaire were rescued following destruction of the Secatur.
— It very well was the timekeeper with the distinction of having been mentioned only once in Casino Royale (assuming that it had survived the Le Chiffre experience).
- watch #2
—In Chapter XX, 007 was intercepted by a crew that had been deployed by Mr Big. “Hopefully, helplessly, Bond … was pulled to his feet and the zips of his rubber suit were torn open {page 210}.
His helmet was snatched off his head and his holster from his shoulder and suddenly he was standing among the debris of his black skin, like a flayed snake, naked except for his brief swimming trunks.
— Later, multiple notations of James Bond having “guessed” at the time in Chapter XXII {pages 223 and 230} indicate that he had been separated from his second, mission watch at some point prior to that — while onboard Secatur. Watch #2 must have been destroyed when that vessel exploded.
Notes
- While the year 1952 was established based upon Casino Royale content, that determination is at odds with From Russia, with Love — three books later in the sequence. Repeated references were made to “Friday the thirteenth” {From Russia, with Love, pages 115, 119, 120, and 174}, in August {From Russia, with Love, pages 99, 102, 107, and 183}. The only year when an Ian Fleming James Bond story could have fallen on a Friday, August 13, was 1954.
— With that, From Russia, with Love, put Moonraker at three years prior {From Russia, with Love, page 55}, meaning 1951. And the action of Live and Let Die took place earlier that year.
Related Pages
— Dell Deaton
Updated: November 21, 2024
April 2006
References (off-site)
- “Ian Fleming” / Ian Fleming Publications (accessed April 6, 2024).
- Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond / 1995 / Andrew Lycett (Turner Publishing: Atlanta).
- “William Plomer: South African Writer” / April 2, 2024 / Britannica (accessed April 6, 2024).
- James Bond: The Man and His World / 2005 / Henry Chancellor (John Murray: London; pages 45, and 105-107).
- “Part III: James Bond-007” / 2003 / David A Randall / Lilly Library Publication Number XII: The Ian Fleming Collection of 19th-20th Century Source Material Concerning Western Civilization together with the Originals of the James Bond-007 Tales (Indiana University: Bloomington; page 32).
- “Ian Fleming and the World of James Bond: The James Bond Novels and Their Manuscripts” / April 30, 2003 / Dawn Thornton / Lilly Library, Indiana University (via Internet Archive, accessed November 19, 2024).
- “The James Bond Books of Ian Fleming: A Descriptive Bibliography” / November 1998 / Lee Biondi / Firsts: The Book Collectors’ Magazine (Firsts Magazine: Tucson; page 41).
- Jonathan Cape: British Publisher / February 20, 2024 / Britannica (accessed April 6, 2024).
- “Live and Let Die” / May 1954 / Ian Fleming / Bluebook Magazine (McCall Corporation: Dayton, Ohio; pages 88-128).
- “The James Bond Books of Ian Fleming.”
- “About Us” / MacMillan Publishers (accessed April 18, 2024).
- “A Statement on the Changes to the New Editions of Ian Fleming’s Bond Stories” / February 27, 2023 / The Fleming Family / Ian Fleming Publications (accessed April 18, 2024).
- James Bond: The Man and His World (page 42).
- “’Moments of great luxury’: Live and Let Die in the author’s typescript — The Lilly Library, Indiana University” / Spring 2017 / Ian Fleming / The Book Collector (The Collector Limited: London; page 127).
- The James Bond Dossier / 1965 / Kingsley Amis (The New American Library of World Literature, page 6).
- Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress / 2005 / Russell Smith / New York: St Martin’s Press (pages 147-148)
- “Rolex Panerai 3646 Service Invoice from 1955” / May 27, 2019 / Jose Pereztroika / Perezcope (accessed August 31, 2022).