Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 13, 2015

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. (Full article...)

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