Casino Royale

There is only one Bond. Enjoy these intoxicating spy novels in stylish Vintage Classics editions.There's no better time to rediscover James Bond.Escape with the nation's favourite spy in the addictive first novel in Ian Fleming's classic series.Le Chiffre is a businessman with expensive tastes, and SMERSH's chief operative in France. But as his dissolute lifestyle threatens to ruin him, his only hope is to risk his paymasters' money at the card table.James Bond, the finest gambler in the service, has a deadly new mission- to outplay Le Chiffre and shatter his Soviet cell.Amidst the opulence of Casino Royale, the two men face each other for a game with the highest stakes of all.'Bond is a hero for all time' Jeffrey Deaver

“Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art...the reader has to go on reading”

Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art…the reader has to go on reading -- John Betjeman
A superb gambling scene, a torture scene which still haunts me, a beautiful girl -- Raymond Chandler
Mr Fleming’s first novel is an extremely engaging affair…the especial charm of the book is the high poetry with which he invests the green blaize lagoons of the casino tables…Mr Fleming has produced a book that is both exciting and extremely civilized Times Literary Supplement
[Casino Royale is] lively, most ingenious in detail, on the surface as tough as they are made and charmingly well-bred beneath Spectator
One of the most original spy thrillers that has ever tickled a jaded palate Empire News

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born in London on 28 May 1908 and was educated at Eton College before spending a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters news agency, followed by a brief spell as a stockbroker. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was appointed assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Godfrey, where he played a key part in British and Allied espionage operations.After the war he joined Kemsley Newspapers as Foreign Manager of the Sunday Times, running a network of correspondents who were intimately involved in the Cold War. His first novel, Casino Royale, was published in 1953 and introduced James Bond, Special Agent 007, to the world. The first print run sold out within a month. Following this initial success, he published a Bond title every year until his death. His own travels, interests and wartime experience gave authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler hailed him as 'the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.' The fifth title, From Russia with Love, was particularly well received and sales soared when President Kennedy named it as one of his favourite books. The Bond novels have sold more than sixty million copies and inspired a hugely successful film franchise which began in 1962 with the release of Dr No starring Sean Connery as 007.The Bond books were written in Jamaica, a country Fleming fell in love with during the war and where he built a house, 'Goldeneye'. He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only child Caspar, went on to become the well-loved novel and film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.Fleming died of heart failure on 12 August 1964, aged fifty-six.

When Ian Fleming quit Naval Intelligence in 1945 he had a plan - to write the spy story to beat all spy stories. And so the world got the hero it had been waiting for - James Bond. 'Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles' In Casino Royale , the first of Fleming's 007 adventures, a game of cards is James Bond's only chance to bring down the desperate SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. But Bond soon discovers that there is far more at stake than money. 'Ian Fleming has discovered the secret of narrative art...the reader has to go on reading' John Betjeman See also: Live and Let Die

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