FLEMING (IAN)

From Russia With Love, FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY TO HIS SECRETARY, "To Una who will at last get to the end! from Ian Fleming" on the front free endpaper, Jonathan Cape, [1957]

Footnotes

FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO HIS REAL LIFE "MISS MONEYPENNY", Una Trueblood, whose surname was later appropriated by Fleming for the character of Mary Trueblood in Dr. No.

Una started work, in 1948, at the Kemsley Newspapers and The Sunday Times, where she was soon appointed as secretary to Ian Fleming, for whom she continued to work throughout the 1950s. She recalled that Fleming "always said he only wrote Casino Royale, the first Bond book, because he was on the plane to Jamaica and he read such a bad, boring thriller that he thought he could do better himself". He would write the Bond novels during his annual stays at Goldeneye, his home in Jamaica, thereafter sending the manuscript to Una for typing up. In 1958 she was shown with Fleming in a photograph taken for the Daily Express.

The character in Dr. No named after Una is Mary Trueblood, secretary to John Strangways, the head of the British Secret Service's Caribbean station, a position echoing that of Una to Fleming. Mary however met a gruesome end, stabbed to death. Recalling a visit to Una made in 2008 the writer Adam Thorpe noted that "The fictional Mary Trueblood has many features in common with her real-life namesake; she's described in Dr No (1958) as "elegant" (three times), "pretty" and a "good-looker"" (TLS, April 2008).

Provenance: Una Trueblood (1930-2020). Fleming's continued admiration for Una is reflected in a letter (retained by the family) written to her, on 23 December 1963, from Fleming's current secretary in which she states "I know that he [Fleming] would like to see you. Even now on occasions I hear "Una would not have made that mistake!..."; by family descent to current vendor.