Fans of the world’s most famous spy must prepare for a mission to London. Imperial War Museum, London.

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, which opens next April, will be the first comprehensive exhibition exploring the Bond phenomenon and the life of his creator.

Fleming’s research notes for From Russia with Love will be on display alongside prototypes of the flick-knife shoes worn by Rosa Klebb in the film, Goldfinger’s golf shoes, a “blood-splattered” shirt worn by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale and Halle Berry’s bikini from Die Another Day.

The centenary of Fleming’s birth will be reached on May 28 next year, and Bond will be fêted throughout 2008. A 22nd film is expected in November next year, with Craig reprising his gritty interpretation of the role. Sebastian Faulks, the author of Birdsong, will publish a new Bond book, Devil May Care, which has been commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications.

For Your Eyes Only will bring together Fleming’s personal effects with an unparalleled range of Bond memorabilia to discover where the identity of the debonair spymaster, journalist and bon vivant ended and the fictional secret agent began.

James Taylor, the curator of the exhibition, said that the author and his character had clear similarities. They were both Scottish, they both excelled at sport and they both lost their father when they were young. Like Bond, Fleming loved luxury. His expenses claims as a reporter were preposter-ously extravagant. Mr Taylor said: “It was said of Churchill that he was easily satisfied with the best of everything, and I think you could say the same of Fleming.”

But there were also well-defined differences. “They were two different people. Bond is, in some ways, who Fleming would have liked to have been. During the war he worked in Naval Intelligence but it was a desk job. He wasn’t able to partake in any frontline operations. Bond also acts as a mouthpiece for Fleming’s own world view, particularly as regards Britain’s role in the world.”

From his first appearance over the gaming tables in Casino Royale, Bond lit up dreary, ration-card Britain. His adventures fulfilled a yearning for travel, exotic food and luxury while embodying a dashing, independent idea of Britain in an increasingly frightening Cold War world, Mr Taylor said.

For Your Eyes Only will show how the Bond plots, locations and villains were rooted in Fleming’s experiences during the Second World War and as a well-travelled reporter. It will examine to what extent the books and films reflect the reality of the Cold War and life in postwar Britain and how far they were a product of Fleming’s prodigious imagination.

Rare material on display will include a map of the Mercury News Network, established by Fleming in the 1950s to collect information and intelligence from Sunday Times foreign correspondents; notes for the scandalous Thrilling Cities series in which Fleming explored the casinos and brothels of the world’s most glamorous metropolises; annotated Bond manuscripts; the Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver presented to Fleming by the Colt company; and the manuscript for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Fleming’s other enduring classic.

The organisers also hope to track down the golden typewriter that Fleming used and to secure a letter to the author written by a Major Boothroyd, advising him on what handguns he thought would be most appropriate for Bond.

“We are looking at the phenomenon that the films became, because they offer another way of looking at Fleming’s work. We want to put across the idea that the film Bond is a very different man from the literary Bond. He has a sense of humour, he sleeps with far more women and he has much less of a conscience than the character on the page.

“Cubby Broccoli [who produced the films until Goldeneye] took Fleming’s ingredients and turned them into his own dish.”

The exhibition will explore how one middle-aged man’s idea generated an entire industry: not only books and films, but also parodies, toys, games and clothes that all fuelled the development of a very British hero.

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