Octopussy and The Living Daylights: the short stories

The story, without spoilers

In "Octopussy", Bond visits a former soldier in Jamaica about a matter with roots in wartime Europe. In "The Living Daylights", he is sent to Berlin to protect another agent from a hidden marksman.

"The Property of a Lady" turns a London auction of a rare object into an intelligence operation. "007 in New York" is a brief sketch of the city seen through Bond's eyes.

Can I start here?

It works as a short sampler, although the stories are best read at the end, as Fleming's last Bond writing.

What stands out

The stories are small in scale: a private guilt, a stakeout, an auction room and a city sketch. The 2025 audiobook runs to less than three hours.

• "The Property of a Lady" was added in a 1967 paperback and "007 in New York" in a 2002 edition.
• The 2025 Audible recording, read by Ben Willbond, has four stories.

Content notes

Suggested age 16+. Violence, wartime wrongdoing, sexualised descriptions and period attitudes.

Book and film

Octopussy (1983, Roger Moore) and The Living Daylights (1987, Timothy Dalton) take their titles and some scenes from these stories.

Main characters

James Bond, M, Major Dexter Smythe.

Is it worth reading? — our verdict

We place Octopussy and The Living Daylights at number 12 in our editorial ranking of the fourteen Fleming Bond books.

Yes, as a collection of brief, revealing episodes rather than a last grand mission. We particularly recommend it to readers who enjoy seeing a familiar character placed at the edge of someone else's story. Bond's presence can be decisive without requiring him to occupy every page, and the smaller scale gives the collection an identity of its own.

Our advice is to read it after the novels if you are following Fleming in publication order. That does not mean every story depends on a previous plot. It means the collection can serve as a final change of pace after the longer sequence. A reader looking for the two films' complete stories, however, should adjust expectations before beginning.

The edition's contents matter more than usual. The original book contained two stories; later editions expanded the collection. Choose a four-story edition if you want the fuller modern selection. We think the short pieces are worth giving separate attention instead of treating them as bonus material to be hurried through. Their interest is often an individual decision, a change of judgement or a small detail that alters the apparent meaning of a situation.

Villains, guilt and judgement

The official guide describes a retired major with a wartime secret, a Berlin sniper and an intelligence operation hidden inside an auction. These threats do not all ask the same thing of Bond. Some demand an immediate practical response, while others depend on recognising a concealed history or interpreting behaviour in a public place.

The collection repeatedly tests the difference between authority and judgement. Having permission to act does not settle how an agent should use it. A mission can set a goal while leaving room for an individual decision about means, timing or restraint. The smaller form is particularly good at making that decision stand out without surrounding it with a larger international emergency.

For readers interested in villains, this is a useful corrective to the expectation that every opponent must be a flamboyant mastermind. A guilty past or an ordinary-looking public transaction can create its own kind of danger. Notice when Bond knows enough to decide and when the story invites us to remain uncertain. The collection often gains force from what does not become a conventional confrontation.

The original stories and the later additions

The Jonathan Cape first edition contained “Octopussy” and “The Living Daylights”. “The Property of a Lady” joined the collection in a 1967 paperback, and “007 in New York” was added in 2002. Those dates concern inclusion in this collection, not the first writing or first publication of every story. The publication history distinguishes the expanding editions.

Our recommendation is to consider the shorter city sketch as a deliberate change of scale. A piece does not need the architecture of a full novel to give the reader a recognisable view of Bond. Small preferences and observations can make a character present without supplying a long sequence of crises. That is a different pleasure from the sustained suspense of a mission.

An auction is also an effective setting for attentive reading. Public behaviour can contain private signals, and expertise can matter more than force. Ask what an observer must know before an apparently ordinary event becomes legible as an intelligence problem. We think that question helps explain why the collection works without continually escalating the danger.

If you are comparing editions, start with the contents page rather than the cover. A familiar title does not guarantee an identical selection. Readers interested in completeness should check for all four named stories; collectors interested in the first edition should expect the original two-story book. Neither format should be described as containing material it does not actually include.

Book versus films: fragments expanded into adventures

The 1983 Roger Moore film uses Dexter Smythe's history as background for the character Octopussy and borrows the auction element associated with “The Property of a Lady”. Its larger story concerns jewellery, a Soviet plot and a travelling circus, rather than reproducing Smythe's short tale as the whole film. The film article explains the screen adventure.

The 1987 Timothy Dalton film uses the Berlin sniper situation near its beginning, then develops an adventure involving Soviet officers, an arms dealer and Afghanistan. The short story is therefore a starting point, not a synopsis of the entire film. The film article documents that expansion.

Our suggestion is to compare the function of the borrowed incident. A compact story can make one decision its centre, whereas a feature film may use that decision to begin a much longer chain of events. The same situation can be meaningful in both versions while carrying a different proportion of the total narrative.

Do not assume that a story becomes less valuable because its screen descendant is more elaborate. Brevity can sharpen uncertainty and make the reader linger over a single choice. We find the collection most rewarding when its modest scale is accepted on its own terms. Read the four stories, let their endings settle, and only then ask what the films kept, changed or invented. That order gives the original writing a chance to be more than a collection of recognisable references.

Publication facts and first-edition cover

Jonathan Cape published Octopussy and The Living Daylights on 23 June 1966, with a Richard Chopping jacket. Its first-edition identity is especially important because that volume contained two stories, whereas the expanded collection discussed throughout this guide contains four. See octopussy and the living daylights publication history.

Before choosing a reading copy, decide whether you want the original selection or the fuller modern one. A date on a retailer's entry cannot answer that question as reliably as the contents page, so check for the individual story names. Collectors pursuing the original Jonathan Cape hardback should expect Octopussy and The Living Daylights; readers seeking the later additions should also look for The Property of a Lady and 007 in New York. The current edition's ISBN and the first-publication date describe different things. Our recommendation is to choose the four-story selection for a first reading of the complete modern collection, then use the original two-story arrangement as a point of comparison rather than assume that every edition has identical contents. Read the official octopussy and the living daylights guide.