The centenary of the birth of James Bond creator Ian Fleming will be marked with the publication of a new 007 book penned by author Sebastian Faulks.

The series of films inspired by his works is one of the most famous in the world and his main character has become a global icon.

More than 100 million Bond books have been sold and over half the world's population has seen a Bond film.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in May 1908 in London. His father Valentine Fleming was a Conservative MP killed in action during the First World War.

Fleming started his writing career as a journalist, working for Reuters from 1929 in the agency's Moscow bureau.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was recruited as personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence.

By the end of the war Fleming was a commander and was involved in a plan to wash up a dead body on a sea shore with false information on Allied landings.

Fleming was also behind Operation Goldeneye, a plan to maintain links with Gibraltar in the event of Franco's Spain joining the Axis powers.

Goldeneye was used by Fleming as the name of his Jamaican estate. In 1995, GoldenEye became the 17th Bond film.

Aside from the Bond series, Fleming is the author of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang -a book he wrote for his son Casper.

In 1961, John F Kennedy listed From Russia With Love among his favourite books. He was shot in November 1963, just weeks after the film was released.

Fleming lived long enough to see only two of his Bond books turned into films - Dr No and From Russia With Love, released in 1962 and 1963 respectively.

Fleming was also a keen book collector with an extensive library.

His collection included Einstein's Nobel Prize-winning paper on the photoelectric effect, a first printing of the Communist Manifesto and the first handbook on golf.

He died of a heart attack on August 12, 1964. As well as Faulks's new book, a series of five Young Bond books have been penned by Charlie Higson.