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

==Publication and reception==

===Publication history===
''From Russia, with Love'' was released in the UK as a hardback on 8 April 1957, by the publishers [[Jonathan Cape]].<ref name="Richardson (1957)"/> The American edition was published a few weeks later by [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]].{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=16}}<ref name="Boucher (1957)" /> Fleming was pleased with the book and later said:

<blockquote>Personally I think ''from Russia, with Love'' was, in many respects, my best book, but the great thing is that each one of the books seems to have been a favourite with one or other section of the public and none has yet been completely damned.{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=97}}</blockquote>

In November 1956 the Prime Minister, [[Anthony Eden|Sir Anthony Eden]], had visited Fleming's Jamaican Goldeneye estate, to recuperate from a breakdown in his health following the [[Suez crisis]]. This was much reported in the British press,{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=15}} and the publication of ''From Russia, with Love'' was accompanied by a promotional campaign that capitalised on Fleming's raised public profile.{{sfn|Lycett|1996|p=313}} The serialisation of the story in ''[[Daily Express|The Daily Express]]'' in 1957 provided a boost to the sales of the book;{{sfn|Lindner|2009|p=16}} a bigger rise in sales was to follow four years later. In an article in ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' on 17 March 1961, the US President [[John F. Kennedy]] listed ''From Russia, with Love'' as one of his ten favourite books.<ref name="Life: Kennedy" />{{efn|Kennedy's brother [[Robert F. Kennedy|Robert]] was also an avid reader of the Bond novels, as was [[Allen Dulles]], the [[Director of Central Intelligence]].{{sfn|Parker|2014|pp=260, 262}}}} This accolade, and its associated publicity, led to a surge in sales that made Fleming the biggest-selling crime writer in the US.{{sfn|Fleming|Higson|2006|p=vi}}{{sfn|Lycett|1996|p=383}} There was a further boost to sales following the release of the [[From Russia with Love (film)|film of the same name]] in 1963, which saw the sales of the [[Pan Books|Pan]] paperback rise from 145,000 in 1962 to 642,000 in 1963 and 600,000 in 1964.{{sfn|Bennett|Woollacott|2009|pp=17, 21}}

In 2023 Ian Fleming Publications—the company that administers all Fleming's literary works—had the Bond series edited as part of a sensitivity review to remove or reword some racial or ethnic descriptors. The rerelease of the series was for the 70th anniversary of ''Casino Royale'', the first Bond novel.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Simpson|first1=Craig|title=James Bond books edited to remove racist references|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/25/james-bond-books-edited-remove-racist-references/|work=The Sunday Telegraph|date=25 February 2023|access-date=27 February 2023|archive-date=27 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227084310/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/25/james-bond-books-edited-remove-racist-references/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===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)"/>