Ian Fleming | Postcard to his lover, Mrs Gilbert Russell, 1948

Ian Fleming

Postcard signed, to Mrs Gilbert Russell, stating "Have buried hatchet with E.S. (Esmond Harmsworth) - fulsomely!", writing "LOVED my weekend x", asking to meet the following week

One page, 27 April 1948

Esmond Harmsworth, Viscount Rothermere, was a Conservative politician press magnate and then-husband of Ann Charteris, who would divorce him for Ian Fleming in 1952. Maud Russell was a British socialite, heir to Cull & Company Merchant Bankers, and one of Ian Fleming's lovers. She notably gave him a gunmetal-finished, gold cigarette case which is thought to have been the inspiration for Red Grant's "oval gold cigarette case" in From Russia, With Love. In A View To A Kill, from For Your Eyes Only (1960), there is a British agent named Mary Russell.