NEWS

Posted on 25 June, 2026

Throughout his life Ian Fleming was fascinated by the appearance of things, whether it was the cut of a suit, the birds of Jamaica or a typeface. In 1947, while helping his friend Robert Harling at the typographical magazine Alphabet & Image, he conceived the idea of a competition for the best interpretation of a twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet.

Entries had to represent a recognised sound or combination of sounds, and must display decorative, philological and typographical merit. Fleming intended to judge the entries alone, and the winner was to receive a book token to the value of five guineas, which at the time was a decent sum. Unfortunately, Fleming was unable to judge his competition – he was in Jamaica at the time – and it was judged in his absence by Robert Harling himself. It was won jointly by illustrator and designer Cecil Keeling and designer and calligrapher John Tarr. Their submissions included letters for ‘-sion’, ‘th’ and ‘st’. The runner-up was artist L. R. Clynick, with a ‘sh’.

Peter Fleming, Ian’s elder brother, was writing a column under the name ‘Strix’ in The Spectator at the time. His choice was ‘er’, as in ‘I have no – er – hesitation in saying…’ He saw it as a long, thin, horizontal letter, ‘drooping slightly at the end; and I’m not sure that I wouldn’t give it an umlaut to make it more decorative.’ His problem was where to fit it into the alphabet. Z was clearly proud of its position and ‘it would sound silly if you used the new letter in stock phrases like “He knows his job from A to ER.”‘ His solution? ‘When I was learning the alphabet, I remember finding the H I J K L stretch particularly tricky going, negotiable only with the help of ER; and if nobody minds, I think it had better go in between K and L, for sentimental reasons.’

In 2017 at the suggestion of Fergus Fleming, Ian’s nephew, the competition was resurrected in The Book Collector, the leading English-language journal for encouraging, supporting and informing all manner of book collecting, co-founded by Ian himself. It received over 2,500 entries, with the shortlist selected by Phil Cleaver, The Book Collector designer and Professor in the Creative Industries at Middlesex University, James Fergusson, Editor of The Book Collector, Fergus Fleming, co-publisher at Queen Anne Press, and Lilian Lindblom-Smith, Head of Graphic Design at Middlesex University. The final decision was then made by the ‘Godfather of British Pop Art’, Sir Peter Blake.

‘LOL’, the 27th letter of the alphabet as imagined by graphic design student David Guthrie took the top spot, and Guthrie was awarded a, in the words of The Book Collector, ‘modestly magnificent’ trophy book – a volume of Ian Fleming’s letters embossed with his letter – and £250, with the journal also donating £500 to the literacy charity Give A Book.