Editing From Russia, with Love (novel) (section)

===Reception===
''From Russia, with Love'' received mainly positive reviews from critics.{{sfn|Parker|2014|p=239}} [[Julian Symons]], in ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'', considered that it was Fleming's "tautest, most exciting and most brilliant tale", that the author "brings the thriller in line with modern emotional needs", and that Bond "is the intellectual's [[Mike Hammer (character)|Mike Hammer]]: a killer with a keen eye and a soft heart for a woman".<ref name="Symons (1957)" /> The critic for ''[[The Times]]'' was less persuaded by the story, suggesting that "the general tautness and brutality of the story leave the reader uneasily hovering between fact and fiction".<ref name="Times (1957)" /> Although the review compared Fleming in unflattering terms to [[Peter Cheyney]], a [[crime fiction]] writer of the 1930s and 1940s, it concluded that ''From Russia, with Love'' was "exciting enough of its kind".<ref name="Times (1957)"/>

''[[The Observer]]''{{'}}s critic, Maurice Richardson, thought that ''From Russia, with Love'' was a "stupendous plot to trap&nbsp;... Bond, our deluxe cad-clubman agent" and wondered "Is this the end of Bond?"<ref name="Richardson (1957)" /> The reviewer for the ''[[Oxford Mail]]'' declared that "Ian Fleming is in a class by himself",{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=97}} while the critic for ''The Sunday Times'' argued that "If a psychiatrist and a thoroughly efficient copywriter got together to produce a fictional character who would be the mid-twentieth century subconscious male ambition, the result would inevitably be James Bond."{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=97}}

Writing in ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Anthony Boucher]]—described by a Fleming biographer, [[John Pearson (author)|John Pearson]], as "throughout an avid anti-Bond and an anti-Fleming man"{{sfn|Pearson|1967|p=99}}—was damning in his review, saying that ''From Russia, with Love'' was Fleming's "longest and poorest book".<ref name="Boucher (1957)" /> Boucher further wrote that the novel contained "as usual, sex-cum-sadism with a veneer of literacy but without the occasional brilliant setpieces".<ref name="Boucher (1957)"/> The critic for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', conversely, wrote that "Mr Fleming is intensely observant, acutely literate and can turn a cliché into a silk purse with astute alchemy".{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=97}} [[Robert Kirsch|Robert R Kirsch]], writing in the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', also disagreed with Boucher, saying that "the espionage novel has been brought up to date by a superb practitioner of that nearly lost art: Ian Fleming."<ref name="Kirsch (1957)" /> In Kirsch's opinion, ''From Russia, with Love'' "has everything of the traditional plus the most modern refinements in the sinister arts of spying".<ref name="Kirsch (1957)"/>