Octopussy and The Living Daylights

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Title Octopussy and The Living Daylights
also Octopussy

First edition cover - published by Jonathan Cape.
Author	Ian Fleming
Cover artist	Richard Chopping (Jonathan Cape ed.)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Released	1966
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	The Man with the Golden Gun
Followed by	003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior

Octopussy and The Living Daylights (sometimes published as Octopussy) is the fourteenth and final James Bond book written by Ian Fleming. It is a collection of short stories published posthumously in the United Kingdom and the United States by Glidrose Productions, in 1966, as a postscript to his James Bond canon.

It originally contained:

• Octopussy
• The Living Daylights

More recent editions have also included:

• The Property of a Lady – added in 1967
• 007 in New York – added in 2002

Elements from the short stories have been used in films The first, Octopussy (1983), starring Roger Moore as James Bond, was the thirteenth film in the EON Productions. The original "Octopussy" short story provided the back story for the film Octopussy's family, while "The Property of a Lady" was more closely adapted for the auction sequence. The Living Daylights (1987) was later adapted as the fifteenth film and starred Timothy Dalton as Bond in his first appearance.

Contents 1 Publication overview 2 Plot overviews 2.1 "Octopussy" 2.2 "The Living Daylights" 2.3 "The Property of a Lady" 2.4 "007 in New York" 3 Publication history 4 Comic strip adaptations 5 References 6 See also

[edit] Publication overview

Before his death, Ian Fleming reportedly had intended to compile a second book of short stories in the same vein as For Your Eyes Only. After his death, Glidrose Productions followed this plan.

Initially, the book contained only two short stories: (i) The final James Bond short story to be published, "Octopussy," which was first serialised in the March and April 1966 issues of Playboy magazine, some two years after Ian Fleming's death; and (ii) "The Living Daylights," considered by some critics to be the best James Bond short story, which was first published in The London Sunday Times colour section on February 4, 1962. It was later printed in the American publication Argosy in the June 1962 issue under the title "Berlin Escape" and again under the same title in the November 1965 issue of Intrigue Magazine.

When the first paperback edition of the collection was published in 1967, it was expanded with a third short story, "The Property of a Lady" which Fleming wrote, in 1963, for inclusion in The Ivory Hammer, the annual publication of Sotheby's auction house. In the second edition, the collection's title was shortened to Octopussy; most paperback reprints of the 1970s and 1980s used the abbreviated title.

The third edition of the collection appeared in 2002, expanded with a fourth short story, "007 in New York." Originally titled "Reflections in a Carey Cadillac," it was however first published under the name "Agent 007 in New York" in the New York Herald Tribune in October 1963. In 1964 it was retitled simply "007 in New York" when published in the American edition of Thrilling Cities. The short story was written as a consolation to readers in New York City due to Fleming's grim opinion of the city. The story was not published in Britain until the late 1990s.

Editions of the collection published since the mid-1990s have used the original full title, Octopussy and the Living Daylights.

It is not known for certain whether any of these stories were ever actually earmarked by Ian Fleming for his never-completed collection, though it is likely "The Living Daylights," at the very least, would have been a strong contender since it (unlike the others) had already been widely published by 1964.

"Octopussy" provided the title of the eponymous 1983 film, and the background for the movie character Octopussy, who in the short story is an Octopus whom the villain attempts to befriend, but who in the film is said to be the villain's daughter. The film also used an element from "The Property of a Lady." In 1987, "The Living Daylights" was closely adapted for part of Timothy Dalton's eponymous first James Bond film of the same title. According to some sources (such as The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson), The Property of a Lady was to have been the title of Dalton's third James Bond film to be released in 1991, but it went un-filmed; little of the original short story would have been available for use, given its having been used in the Octopussy film.

[edit] Plot overviews

It has been suggested that the stories in this collection may well have taken place during the dark period of Bond's career following the death of his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond complains at the start of You Only Live Twice (the novel that follows OHMSS) about the meaningless assignments he had undertaken since then. This is however, not likely to be true as all of these stories seemingly take place prior to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. "The Living Daylights", for instance, is believed to have taken place after Thunderball sometime in 1960. It was also written and published prior to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. ^[1] Some sources claim that "Octopussy" followed The Spy Who Loved Me chronologically, which itself was followed by "007 in New York" and "The Property of a Lady", and finally by On Her Majesty's Secret Service. ^[2] Given the fact that Fleming was known to have purposefully changed dates to maintain Bond's age of roughly 38 years, and that some dates contradicted others in the same books, it is unknown for sure when exactly these stories took place.

[edit] "Octopussy"

Bond is assigned to apprehend a hero of the Second World War implicated in a murder involving a cache of Nazi gold. Agent 007 appears briefly in this story, which is told mostly in flashback and from the point of view of Major Dexter Smythe, the villain (the later 1983 film of the same name introduced a female protagonist who is said to be the major's daughter.)

[edit] "The Living Daylights"

An unusually morose James Bond is assigned sniper duty to help a defector known as "272" escape from East Berlin. Bond's duty is to prevent a top KGB assassin codenamed "Trigger" from killing 272 by eliminating the sniper. However, the assignment becomes difficult when Bond discovers that Trigger is a beautiful female cellist whom he had earlier admired. Bond, never wishing to kill anyone in cold blood, decides instead to shoot the butt of her rifle, preventing her from making the kill. The mission, while successful, is also considered a failure due to Bond's last-second decision, and it ends with Bond hoping that M fires him for it.

The story includes an oblique reference to Ian Fleming's half-sister, cellist Amaryllis Fleming, where Bond muses: "There was something almost indecent in the idea of that bulbous, ungainly instrument between her splayed thighs. Of couse Suggia had managed to look elegant, and so did that girl Amaryllis somebody."

[edit] "The Property of a Lady"

James Bond investigates a Secret Service employee, Maria Freudenstein, who is a double agent about to be paid by her Russian keepers by auctioning a Fabergé egg by Carl Fabergé at Sotheby's in her name. The Russians have sent the Resident Director of the KGB in London to attend the auction and underbid for the item in order to push the price to the necessary value to pay for her services as a double agent. Bond attends the auction in hopes of spotting this man; after doing so the man is expelled from London as persona non grata.

Maria Freudenstein was hired by the British Secret Service with prior knowledge that she was a double agent. She is essentially tasked with sending phony SITREPS to Washington D.C., which she copies and sends to Moscow unknowing that they are fake. Her unpleasant fate is revealed in Fleming's novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, though as it happened most readers did not get to see this story, in which she first appeared, until several years after the novel came out.

The short story also includes Kenneth Snowman as an ally of Bond. Snowman, in reality, was a master jeweller and one of the leading experts on Carl Fabergé. "The Property of a Lady" features a number of notes on the items for auction, one of which references a book by Kenneth Snowman. Snowman thus became one of the few real people to appear in the Fleming canon (though later Bond works by John Gardner and Raymond Benson would feature appearances by people ranging from American presidents to Playboy Playmates).

[edit] "007 in New York"

A brief tale in which Bond muses about New York City, and his favourite recipe for scrambled eggs, during a quick mission to the Big Apple to warn a female MI6 employee that her new boyfriend is a KGB agent. It is notable only for including a rare humorous conclusion, and for its mention of Solange, a young lady of Bond's intimate acquaintance who works in a shop, Abercrombie's, "appropriately employed in their Indoor Games Department".

[edit] Publication history

[edit] Comic strip adaptations

Main article: James Bond comic strips

Two of Fleming's short stories were adapted as daily comic strips which were published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated worldwide.

• "The Living Daylights" ran from September 12 to November 12, 1966, adapted by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Yaroslav Horak.
• "Octopussy" ran from November 14, 1966 to May 27, 1967, again by Lawrence and Horak.

Both comic strips were reprinted by Titan Books in the early 1990s, and again in 2004. To date, "The Property of a Lady" and "007 in New York" have not been adapted as comic strips. Along with "Quantum of Solace" from For Your Eyes Only, these remain the only Ian Fleming Bond stories not yet adapted in this form.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Octopussy - the film
• The Living Daylights - the film