The name Kingsley Amis does not come to mind as a hero of James Bond novels, but to many fans, he is the one who championed OO7 to a literary height.  Amis was born April 22, 1922 into a lower middle class British family.  He was educated at the City of London School and soon at Oxford University. In his young adulthood Amis was known as a radical and a 'supreme clubman, boozer and blimp'. He was one of the 'Angry Young Men', a group of post war-intellectuals who mocked the upper class system.  Ironically, by his older age he would be known as a conservative critic of contemporary life and manners.  

His first novel, 'Lucky Jim' was published in 1954 and was an instant success.  Amis found that stinging satire was his forte and he would write over 20 novels and numerous essays, short stories and poems.  

Amis defended Ian Fleming's literary works and helped lift the novels from pulp fiction obscurity to classic British literature.  In 1965 he wrote two books on the world of OO7.  The first was called THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER.  A book that examined Fleming's character and explained in detail why the Bond novels were more than mere fiction.  The book was a hit among fans and 20 years later would be updated by future Bond novelist Raymond Benson which was titled THE JAMES BOND BEDSIDE COMPANION.  The second was called THE BOOK OF BOND, OR EVERY MAN HIS OWN OO7, a tongue-in-cheek guide.

The biggest contribution Amis did for the literary OO7 series was the 1968 novel COLONEL SUN.  Using the pseudonym, Robert Markham, Amis proved that he could be a great spy thriller writer worthy of Fleming.  Unfortunately, it did not fare too well in it's initial run.  Amis attempted a second Bond novel, this time ending with the death of OO7 (for real).  Fleming's widow, Ann Fleming insisted that this and any other novels about OO7 should not be published.  Except for the John Pearson novel JAMES BOND: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF OO7 and two novels written by Christopher Wood and based on the films THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER, new OO7 adventures were no where to be found from the book stores until early 1981 when novelist John Gardner was officially commissioned to begin a new series of James Bond novels.

One of the last interviews Amis gave was for A&E's BIOGRAPHY on the life of Ian Fleming.  He died October 23, 1995 at the age of 73.

Continue