On Her Majesty's Secret Service (novel)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the tenth novel and eleventh book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 1 April 1963. Fleming changed the formula and structure from the previous novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, and made a determined effort to produce a work that adhered to his tried and tested format. The initial and secondary print runs sold out quickly, with over 60,000 copies sold in the first month, double that of the previous book's first month of sales. Fleming wrote the novel at Goldeneye, his holiday home in Jamaica, while Dr. No, the first entry in the James Bond film series by Eon Productions, was being filmed nearby.
First edition cover, published by Jonathan Cape
The College of Arms building in London
HMS Repulse on manoeuvres in the 1920s
George Lazenby, the second actor to play Bond on the cinema screen, with Diana Rigg, his co-star from On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The Spy Who Loved Me (novel)
The Spy Who Loved Me is the ninth novel and tenth book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, first published by Jonathan Cape on 16 April 1962. It is the shortest and most sexually explicit of Fleming's novels, as well as the only Bond novel told in the first person. Its narrator is a young Canadian woman, Viv Michel. Bond himself does not appear until two-thirds of the way through the book, arriving at precisely the right moment to save Viv from being raped and murdered by two criminals. Fleming wrote a prologue to the novel giving the character Viv credit as a co-author.
First edition cover, published by Jonathan Cape
A Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife, as depicted on the front cover of the first edition