The return of spywisesecretdossier.com-

If you were reading books back in 1965 like I was, you might remember a little red paperback called Double O Seven, James Bond, A Report by O.F. Snelling. It was the only such title personally authorized by Ian Fleming. Part of the book’s initial success was that its publication roughly coincided with the death of Fleming in August 1964 and included footnotes discussing the recently issued Bond novel, You Only Live Twice. Focused on the literary 007 with passing mentions of the first Sean Connery films, Snelling examined the predecessors to Bond, his adversaries, and especially the women in the novels. Knowing novelist Kingsley Amis was also working on a similar study (published as The James Bond Dossier in 1965), Snelling rushed out his book to compete with Amis, and the two titles have been frequently compared ever since as the earliest serious studies of the James Bond phenomena. Snelling’s title sold over a million copies, appeared in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, and Israeli editions and translations, and it came out in the United States in 1965 under the imprint of the New American Library, Ian Fleming's own publishers.
Readers of the original paperback experienced Oswald Frederick Snelling’s literary critique of the Bond novels in five sections.
First, Snelling examined “His Predecessors”, “those upper-crust fictional heroes who performed feats of sexless derring-do long before the advent of the permissive society: leftover puppets from the age of chivalry.”
“His Image” was a section which analyzed “James Bond personally in the minutest detail, from the black comma of hair which falls across his brow to the casual shoes he wears on his feet.”
“His Women,” as the reviewers noticed, “is the longest part. Then comes ‘His Adversaries.’: Finally, ‘His Future.’” In Snelling’s view, this was bright indeed for 007.
The final page was a reproduction of a now famous watermark he saw on his typing paper – “Bond-Extra Strong.”
In notes written long before Snelling died on January 31, 2001 in London, the writer concluded by describing his now classic critical study: “‘Double 0 Seven’ set out to examine and to analyze James Bond by treating him as a real person. It was not a long book, and it made no attempt to be highbrow, abstruse, or involved. It was deliberately written in a racy and easy-to-read style. Certainly it is jokey and humorous, but it is both lighthearted and serious at the same time.”

Despite the book’s original success, Snelling and his literary executor, Ron Payne, were never successful finding a publisher interested in issuing a new edition. Instead, The first authorized full-text publication of Snelling’s 1964 book in over 40 years, now with the title he preferred – James Bond Under the Microscope debuted at my spywise.net website and is back again exclusively at spywisesecretdossier.com.
Snelling’s 1981 preface has been added as an update to this PDF publication. We added excerpts and passages from letters exchanged between Ron Payne and Snelling beginning in 1979. These letters, edited especially for SpyWise.net, are introduced with notes by Ron Payne. The passages show Snelling’s changing views on 007 over the years, share some of his views on spy films, television, and writers, and perhaps include enough of Snelling’s life to give perspective into the literary life of an extraordinary writer and thinker.
And, while not directly related to Mr. Bond, we also offer the first online publication of an essay Snelling wrote for the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review in 1981. This discussion of “Clubland” writer Dornford Yates was seen only by subscribers to that magazine, and never available in America. (Yates, as mentioned in James Bond Under the Microscope, was very much a literary forbearer to Ian Fleming.)
You can find all these offerings at:
https://www.spywisesecretdossier.com/...