Ian Fleming

Fleming came from merchant banking money and lost his father on the Western Front in 1917. He drifted through Eton, Sandhurst, and a few universities before landing in journalism, then spent the Second World War planning operations for Naval Intelligence - work that seeded everything he'd later write. At 44, restless or bored, he sat down in 1952 and wrote Casino Royale. It sold fast enough to require three print runs. Eleven more Bond novels and two story collections followed over the next dozen years, all centered on Commander James Bond, 007, an MI6 officer whose adventures became one of the best-selling fiction series in history. He also wrote the children's book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang in 1964. A heavy smoker and drinker, Fleming died of heart disease that same year at 56, with two Bond books still unpublished and a franchise that would long outlive him.