Octopussy and The Living Daylights
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Octopussy and the Living Daylights is a collection of James Bond short stories, by Ian Fleming, published posthumously in the United Kingdom and the United States by Glidrose Productions, in 1966, as a postscript to his James Bond canon.
| Contents |
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" (with agent 007 in a minor role), which was first serialized 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 critics to be the best James Bond short story, which was first published in the 1962 magazine supplement to The Times newspaper (the story also appeared under the title "Berlin Escape", in the June 1962 issue of Argosy magazine).
When the first paperback edition of the collection was published in 1967, it was expanded with a third short story, "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, the daughter of the villain in the short story; the film also used most of the plot of "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, 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 unfilmed; little of the original short story would have been available for use, given its having been used in the Octopussy film. As for "007 in New York", some aficionados feel that, though unfilmed, the story's spirit is in the New York City segment of the 1973 film, Live and Let Die.
| Author: | Publisher: | Hardback: | Paperback: | Alternate titles: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ian Fleming | Glidrose Productions | (US) 1966 | (US) 1967 | Octopussy |
| Preceded by: The Man with the Golden Gun | ||||
| Followed by: Colonel Sun | ||||
Plot overviews
At the start of You Only Live Twice, Bond complains about the meaningless assignments he had undertaken since the death of his wife (Tracy Bond) at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It has been suggested that the stories in this collection may well have taken place during this dark period of Bond's career.
"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.)
"The Living Daylights"
An unusually morose James Bond is assigned sniper duty to help a defector known as "272" escape 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 to instead 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.
"Property of a Lady"
James Bond investigates a Secret Service employee, Maria Freudenstadt, who is a double agent about to be paid by her Russian keepers by auctioning a Fabergé egg at Sotheby's in her name. The Russians have sent a man from London, known as the underbidder, to push the price of the item to the necessary value to pay for her services as a double agent. Bond attends the auction in hopes of spotting this man and after doing so has the man expelled from London as persona non grata.
Maria Freudenstadt was hired by the British Secret Service with prior knowledge that she was an agent of the KGB. She is essentially tasked with sending phony SITREPS to Washington D.C., which she copies and sends to Moscow unknowning 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.
"007 in New York"
The story, "007 in New York", is an inconsequential tale in which Bond muses about New York City, and his favorite 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.
Comic strip adaptations
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, "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.
See also
- Octopussy - the movie
- The Living Daylights - the moviesv:Octopussy (bok)
