Ian Fleming's James Bond letters will highlight sale

A pair of letters from James Bond creator Ian Fleming is to auction at Bonhams.

Each will be sold with a valuation of £3,000-4,000 ($4,625-6,167) in the fine books and manuscripts auction in London on November 11.

Both letters are addressed to a DR GRGD Gibson.

Fleming Bond letter
Fleming responds playfully to a fan in the letters

He contacted Fleming in 1959 to invite both the author and Bond to join the Aston Martin Owner's Club and suggesting a plotline for a new novel.

Fleming writes back: "I have in mind a story with motor racing as its background, but it isn't quite along the lines you helpfully suggest.

"I will try and get around to it in due course and shall not be surprised if I then receive a sheaf of acid complaints from experts such as yourself..."

Anthony Horowitz, author of the Young Bond series, told Bonhams: "I'm rather glad Fleming never wrote this story as it allowed me to do so - in Trigger Mortis - some fifty years later. I'm quite tempted to bid for this little piece of James Bond history!"

Fleming and Dr Gibson both appear to enjoy their correspondence.

In another letter from 1957, written after From Russia with Love (which ends with Bond being stabbed with a poison-capped blade and lapsing into unconsciousness), Fleming reassures Gibson that Bond will be back in action soon.

He writes: "For your confidential information, the following bulletin was recently placed on the canteen notice board of the headquarters of the secret service at Regent's Park: 'After a period of anxiety the condition of No. 007 shows definitive improvement.

"'It has been confirmed that 007 was suffering from severe Fugu poisoning (a particularly virulent member of the curare group obtained from the sex glands of the Japanese Globe fish).

"'This diagnosis, for which the Research Department of the School of Tropical Medicine was responsible, has determined a course of treatment which is proving successful.'"

A Rolex Submariner worn by Roger Moore in From Russia With Love is up for auction at Phillips.

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