FLEMING, Ian

[336] pp.

1964

Taiwanese ‘Pirate’ Edition

7 3/4″ x 5 1/2″

You Only Live Twice is the eleventh novel and twelfth book in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series.[a] It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1964 and quickly sold out. It was the last novel Fleming published in his lifetime. He based his book in Japan after a stay in 1959 as part of a trip around the world that he published as Thrilling Cities. He returned to Japan in 1962 and spent twelve days exploring the country and its culture.

You Only Live Twice begins eight months after the murder of Tracy Bond, James Bond’s wife, which occurred at the end of the previous novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963). Bond is drinking, gambling heavily and making mistakes on his assignments when, as a last resort, he is sent to Japan on a semi-diplomatic mission. While there he is challenged by the head of the Japanese Secret Service to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Bond realises that Shatterhand is Ernst Stavro Blofeldthe man responsible for Tracy’s deathand sets out on a revenge mission to kill him and his wife, Irma Bunt. The novel is the concluding chapter of the “Blofeld Trilogy”, which had begun in 1961 with Thunderball.