Ian Fleming's mind was a jumble of conflicting thoughts and emotions when he sat down to his first draft of Casino Royale in Jamaica in February 1952.
He liked to joke that he finally got round to writing his first James Bond novel because he needed something to take his mind off his impending marriage to Ann, the striking dark-haired aristocratic woman with whom he had an on-off affair for over a decade, and who had recently divorced her second husband, Lord Rothermere, owner of the powerful Daily Mail newspaper.
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