Casino Royale (1953) is a
James Bond novel, the first of twelve featuring the British secret agent by
Ian Fleming. At a casino in
Royale-les-Eaux, Bond beats
Le Chiffre, the treasurer of a French trade union and a member of the Russian secret service, in a high-stakes
baccarat game; Bond wins 80 million
francs belonging to
SMERSH, the
Soviet counterintelligence agency. He is supported by
Vesper Lynd, a member of his own service, as well as
Felix Leiter of the
CIA and
René Mathis of the French
Deuxième Bureau. Fleming took plot elements from his wartime experiences in the
Naval Intelligence Division and based some characters on people he met during the war; the character of Bond also reflected many of Fleming's personal tastes. Looking for distraction in advance of his forthcoming wedding, Fleming wrote the draft in early 1952 at his
Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. The book was given broadly positive reviews by critics at the time and sold out in less than a month after its UK release, although US sales upon release a year later were much slower. The story has been adapted several times, including in a
daily comic strip and twice
on film, a
1967 adaptation starring
David Niven and a
2006 version starring
Daniel Craig. (
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