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In Memoriam James Fleming
Posted on 16/12/2024 at 18:12James Roland Fleming, writer and editor, died suddenly on 22 November 2024 at the age of 80. A nephew of Ian Fleming, who founded The Book Collector in 1952, James took the journal back into family ownership on New Year’s Day 2016.
There and then James and his brother Fergus Fleming decided that they should bring out a special edition devoted to the life, as a great book collector, of their uncle Ian. The Spring 2017 edition of The Book Collector opens with James’s recollections of Ian, in which the first paragraph sets the scene.
‘After fifty years under the guardianship of Nicolas Barker, The Book Collector has come full circle. It was Ian Fleming who, amidst all the incidents of an extraordinary life, found time to launch the journal, lead it and promote it indefatigably. His line died out with the death of his son, Caspar, and it is to me, a nephew, that The Book Collector has descended.'
James regarded it as a great honour to follow in at least one of his uncle's footsteps, and his commitment to the journal was evident from the start. We had our first meeting in characteristic style over a splendid lunch. I got drunk and rather silly on a rum-laden tiramisu, and James dined out on it for years to come.
My last email exchange with James reflects everything that I most valued about our collaboration on my interviews for The Book Collector. It concerned a reference to Atlantic salmon fishing in a draft of my interview with Charles B. Wood, antiquarian bookseller and author of Bibliotheca Salmo Salar.
‘May I be picky? To say Atlantic salmon fishing suggests Charles is fishing in the Atlantic whereas what he means is that he's fishing for Atlantic salmon, which is a separate species from other salmons, and found mainly in Europe. Go well, my dear.’
I will remember James not only for his dedication to the interests of collectors, bibliographers, booksellers and librarians, but also for his passion for the English language which stayed with him till the end. Shortly before he died, James was heard to instruct a nurse in the correct use of ‘less’ and ‘fewer’.
Go well, dear James, my editor and friend.
In Memoriam Robin Myers
Posted on 08/05/2023 at 14:05Robin Myers passed away on the morning of her 97th birthday on 1 May 2023. The first female President of The Bibliographical Society, which she always referred to as ‘Bib Soc’, Robin was awarded an MBE in 2009 for services to bibliography. I first met Robin in 1979 when she gave a talk to the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles on The Stationers’ Company, a year after her appointment as its Honorary Archivist. Robin’s interview may be found here http://www.sheila-markham.com/book-collectors/robin-myers.html
