A reviewer in The Listener described Casino Royale as 'Supersonic John Buchan', and a comparison between the two authors is extremely revealing. Fleming's hero, James Bond, like Buchan's Richard Hannay, is a Secret Service agent, continually either chasing or being chased by enemy spies, often at the point of death but always saved by some improbable turn of events. Hannay's adversaries, before and during World War I, were the somewhat casual and heavy-handed emissaries of...

Casino Royale. An alternative title, I suggest, having never quite known how baccarat is played, would be The Gambler's Vade-Mecum. A Secret Service thriller, lively, most ingenious in detail, on the surface as tough as they are made and charm-Ian (Lancaster) Fleming 1908–1964 Photograph by Harrods of London. Courtesy of Glidrose Publications Ltdingly well-bred beneath, nicely written and—except for a too ingeniously sad...

Mr. Ian Fleming's first novel [Casino Royale] is an extremely engaging affair, dealing with espionage in the [L.] Sapper manner but with a hero who, although taking a great many cold showers and never letting sex interfere with work, is somewhat more sophisticated. At any rate he takes very great care over his food and drink, and sees women's clothes with an expertness of which Bulldog Drummond would have been ashamed…. [The] especial charm of Mr. Fleming's book is the high poetr...