in the trade unions had been an issue in the press and parliament at the time. Britain had also suffered from defections to the Soviet Union from two MI6 operatives who were part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets. Thus Lycett observes that Casino Royale can be seen as Fleming's "attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world that could produce traitors like Burgess and Maclean". The journalist and writer Matthew Parker observes that with the defections of the two spies so recent to the publication, it was "perhaps the closest Fleming came to a [John] le Carré-style spy story". Chancellor sees the moral ambiguity of the Cold War reflected in the novel. Benson considers the most obvious theme of the novel to be good versus evil. Parker agrees, and highlights a conversation between Bond and Matthis in the chapter titled "The Nature of Evil", in which Bond says: "By ... [Le Chiffre's] evil existence ... he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist." The subject was also dealt with by the academic Beth Butterfield, in an examination of Bond from an existentialist viewpoint. In light of Bond's conversation, Butterfield identifies a crisis of confidence in Bond's character, where he has "moved beyond good and evil" to the point where he does his job not because of principles, but to pursue personal battles. Eco comes to the same conclusion, stating that Bond "abandon[s] the treacherous life of moral mediation and of psychological anger, with all the dangers they entail." Black also identifies a mechanism Fleming uses in Casino Royale—and in subsequent Bond novels—which is to use the evil of his opponents both as a justification of his actions, and as a device to foil their own plans. Black refers to the episode of the attempted assassination of Bond by Bulgarian assassins which results in their own deaths. Publication and reception Publication history Casino Royale was first released on 13 April 1953 in the UK as a hardback edition by publishers Jonathan Cape, with a cover devised by Fleming. Cape printed 4,728 copies of Casino Royale, which sold out in less than a month; a second print run the same month also sold out, as did a third run of more than 8,000 books published in May 1954. The