Peter Fleming undertook an epic but fruitless mission up the Amazon, and then wrote a bestselling book about it. He also inspired his brother, Ian, to create the most famous fictional spy of all time. Ben Macintyre considers a very British hero.
“Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Percy Fawcett; abundant game, big and small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS; highest references expected and given. Write: Box 1150, The Times, EC4.”
So ran an advertisement in the personal column of The Times on 14 April 1932, inviting readers to help solve one of the greatest mysteries of the age: the disappearance, seven years earlier, of the explorer Percy Fawcett. It was answered by Peter Fleming – the elder brother of Ian, the creator of James Bond – who was dispatched to the Amazon as special correspondent for The Times.
Fawcett’s doomed expedition to find a lost Amazonian civilisation is given the epic film treatment in The Lost City of Z, released last month. But Fleming’s subsequent journey to find the lost explorer was just as brave, quixotic and futile as Fawcett’s original quest, and much funnier: it revolutionised travel writing, gripped Times readers, and indirectly gave birth to one of the most celebrated and enduring characters in British literature: James Bond. For 85 years, the photographs and diaries recording that journey have remained in the Fleming family archive.
This story is from the April 15 2017 edition of The Week UK.
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This story is from the April 15 2017 edition of The Week UK.
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