From Russia With Love - FOUTH IMPRESSION (1958)

Fourth Impression, Jonathan Cape, 1958, hardcover, 253 pages, no dust jacket, condition: very good.

From Russia, with Love is the fifth novel by the English author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond Fleming wrote the story in early 1956 at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica; at the time he thought it might be his final Bond book. The novel was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 8 April 1957.

The story centres on a plot by SMERSH, the Sovietcounter-intellengence agency, to assassinate Bond in such a way as to discredit both him and his organisation. As bait, the Russians use a beautiful cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova and the Spektor, a Soviet decoding machine. Much of the action takes place in Istanbul and on the Orient Express. The book was inspired by Fleming's visit to Turkey on behalf of The Sunday Times to report on an Interpol conference; he returned to Britain by the Orient Express. From Russia, with Love deals with the EastWest tensions of the Cold War, and the decline of British power and influence in the post-Second World War era.