The books of John Le Carre

Who is John Le Carre?

John Le Carre is the English writer best known for disillusioned, suspenseful spy novels based on a wide knowledge of international espionage. Le Carré's famous hero is George Smiley, a Chekhovian character and shadow like member of the British Foreign Service. In his works the author has explored the moral problems of patriotism, espionage, and ends versus means. Le Carré's style is precise and elegant, and his novels are noted for skillful plotting and witty dialogue. Familiarity with intelligence agents connects le Carré to the long tradition of spy/writers from Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and Daniel Defoe to the modern day writers, such as Graham Greene, John Dickson Carr, Somerset Maugham, Alec Waugh, and Ted Allbeury.

Books by John Le Carre Table of Contents

John Le Carre writes gripping espionage novels

A Brief Biography of John Le Carre

How John Le Carre was inspired to write

John Le Carre is the pen name of David Cornwell. He was born in Poole, Dorset, as the son of Ronnie Cornwell, who engaged in swindles and was imprisoned for fraud. According to the author, this has been one of the factors of his fascination with secrets. Ronnie Cornwell also participated in politics. His father's chameleonic character inspired the novel A PERFECT SPY (1986). Le Carré's mother left the family when he was five. "I have no memory of mourning my mother at all," le Carré has confessed, but her absence was another secret, which shaped his early years. Le Carré did not meet his mother until he was 21.

Dissatisfied with Sherborne School, le Carré persuaded his father to send him to school in Switzerland. At Sherborne his relationship with the rigid housemaster was not good and le Carré started to view institutions with growing suspicion. He studied at Berne University (1948-49), and after military service, which he did in Austria, le Carré returned to England. In Switzerland le Carré met an English diplomat, who possibly was attached to intelligence work, and he become fascinated by espionage - it was the call for le Carré. He studied modern languages at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating in 1956. At Oxford he kept a very low profile. Later it has been claimed, that le Carré was already a spy. He was two years as a tutor at Eton, teaching French and German, and then joined the Foreign Service.

A Brief Biography contd.

Background to some of the early John Le Carre Books

In 1959 le Carré became a member of the British Foreign Service in West Germany, where he made friends of German politicians. Later he was consul in Hamburg. The most famous double agent of the Cold War, "Kim" Philby (1912-1988), betrayed le Carré, and gave his name among others to the Russians. During his years at the operational section of MI5 le Carré met John Bingham, who encouraged him to write and read the manuscript of his first novel. Bingham, the pen-name and family name of Lord Clanmorris, was one of the two men who inspired le Carré's famous character, George Smiley: "Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes..." Bingham, who had published crime novels, never accepted the picture of the Intelligence Services that le Carré gave in his books. "As far as John was concerned - and many others too - claims of good intent were guff. I was a shit, consigned to the ranks of other shits like Compton McKenzie, Malcolm Muggeridge and J.C. Masterman, all of whom had betrayed the Service by writing about it." (Le Carré in his introduction to Bingham's Five Roundabouts to Heaven, Pan Classic Crime, 2001)

For decades le Carré denied that his work in Germany had any element of espionage. Gradually he has gradually broken his silence and talked about this and other sides of his life in the BBC documentary The Secret Service (prod. 2000). However, le Carré has insisted that he was never James Bond or anything like that. "I sat behind a desk"

At Lincoln College he apparently kept his eyes open for possible agents recruited by the Soviet Union. Later le Carré moved from MI5 to MI6, and he was in Berlin when the wall was erected - "the fun had started". His own experiences inspired him to compose a novel which became CALL FOR THE DEAD (1961), le Carré's first spy thriller, which introduced George Smiley. Later the author himself considered it only a so-so book. It was followed by a completely different kind of work, A MURDER OF QUALITY (1962), a detective novel set in a boys' school.

Learn more about these books on Amazon

Buy a used book for a real bargain!

Call for the Dead

by John le Carre

Amazon Price: $10.40 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $13.00
Used Price: $1.88

Usually ships in 24 hours

A Murder of Quality

by John le Carre

Amazon Price: $10.40 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $13.00
Used Price: $1.41

Usually ships in 24 hours

A Brief Biography contd. again

Le Carre Novels Published 1963 and 1965

After the success of his third novel, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1963), le Carré began to devote himself full-time to writing. His aim was to portray the intelligence world from a new standpoint - "When I first began writing, Ian Fleming was riding high and the picture of the spy was that of a character who could have affairs with women, drive a fast car, who used gadgetry and gimmickry to escape." With his breakthrough novel le Carré established an alternative form to the James Bond cult and a new type of hero. Graham Greene considered it the best spy story he had ever read and J.B. Priestley wrote that the book was "superbly constructed with an atmosphere of chilly hell." The novel won le Carré the Somerset Maugham Award.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is the story of a frustrated British agent, Alec Leamas, whose life is far from the glamour of James Bond's world: he has a love affair with a lonely, unpaid librarian, not with a fashion model. After his sub-agents in East Germany have been killed, Leamas travels behind the Iron Curtain to destroy the head of the East German Intelligence, who has directed the killings. Soon he finds out that his own people had framed him in order to frame Fiedler, an East German. In the world of double-crossing, Leamas has no way out - he is used and destroyed by his superiors. "We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean... one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold... d'you see what I mean?" (from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) The novel was filmed in 1966. The harshly photographed black and white film was directed by Martin Ritt, starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner.

LOOKING GLASS WAR (1965) continued the exploration of the intrigues of the Intelligence Service. It began with the death of a courier, who had been sent to Finland, one of the spy centers of Europe, to collect films taken by a commercial pilot, who had flown off course while over East Germany. Orders are given for the planting of an agent in this territory where, it is suspected, a new type of rocket site is being set up.

Amazon has great reviews about these books

The "Used Price" is usually tremendous value!

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

by John le Carre

Amazon Price: $12.35 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $14.00
Used Price: $1.97

Usually ships in 24 hours

The Looking Glass War

by John le Carre

Amazon Price: $11.90 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $14.00
Used Price: $0.68

Usually ships in 24 hours

A Brief Biography contd. yet again

Not so brief now

A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY (1968) was set in the same town, Bonn, where le Carré had worked. In this novel Second Secretary in Chancery, Leo Harting, has disappeared. The story deals with topical issues, student riots and rising neo-Fascism, with an ambiguous message about what might happen in the near future in Federal Germany. In TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY (1974) le Carré re-introduced George Smiley. His character was based more or less on two true life persons: Lord Clanmorris, who wrote novels under the name John Bingham and who worked for MI5, and Vivian Green, who was Le Carre's teacher at Oxford. In this story a Soviet double agent has revealed some of the best agents in the English spy network. The mole is one of them - but which one? It was followed by The Honourable Schoolboy and SMILEY'S PEOPLE (1979), sometimes known as the 'Search for Karla trilogy', because the central theme is the struggle between Smiley and the Soviet spymaster Karla. The first two were made into hugely successful television dramatizations.

THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL (1983) was narrated in the second person, and was about the cause of Palestinian liberation. The central character is an actress, who is persuaded by an Israeli agent to lose her Arab sympathies and spy for them. The book was made into a film in 1984, losing in the process le Carré's intricate plotting. "Nothing went right", said the author later. Before the last or latest Smiley novel, THE SECRET PILGRIM (1991), le Carré published A PERFECT SPY (1986), drawing on his own relations with his domineering father, and THE RUSSIA HOUSE (1989), a response to the end of the Cold War, where a British publisher becomes involved in espionage by a Soviet woman, who acts as emissary for a volatile friend. The novel was adapted for screen, starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Clips from a great series

Watch these great clips of Alec Guiness playing George Smiley in TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY.
The End Credits video has the most fantastic music!

tinker tailor soldier spy

Runtime: 2:39
1843 views
10 Comments:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy -- End Credits

Runtime: 2:42
7629 views
10 Comments:

powered by YouTube

There are more reviews on Amazon

A Perfect Spy

by John le Carre

Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $15.00
Used Price: $1.87

Usually ships in 24 hours

The Russia House

by John Le Carre

Amazon Price: $7.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $7.99
Used Price: $0.01

Usually ships in 24 hours

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Readers in the U.K. and Europe can purchase John Le Carre products from Amazon UK.

Charlie Rose interviewing David Cornwell (John Le Carre)

The Tailor of Panama

Some remarkable views and insights from David Cornwell about today's Russia - and his book The Tailor of Panama, which has nothing to do with Russia, really.

Charlie Rose: October 24, 1996

First, David Cromwell, who writes under the pseudonym John Le Carre, speaks about his long career as a spy novelist and his 16th novel examining the world of corruption and espionage in Panama, "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold". Then, musician Chris Isaak talks about his record, "The Baja Sessions", and closes the show with an acoustic performance from the album.

Runtime: 57:17
1973 views
3 Comments:

powered by YouTube

How about an audio book?

For your ipod or mp3 player

Click on one of the links below to order your audio book.....

The Mission Song, (Abridged)

The Mission Song, (Unabridged)

A naive young interpreter stumbles into the heart of an outrageous British plot in the astonishing new novel by the master of the literary thriller.

Abandoned by both his Irish father and Congolese mother, Bruno Salvador (alias Salvo) has long looked for someone to guide his life. Enter Mr. Anderson of British Intelligence. Bruno's African upbringing and fluency in numerous African languages have made him a top interpreter in London, useful to businesses, hospitals, diplomats--and spies. Working for Anderson in a clandestine facility known as the "Chat Room," Salvo translates intercepted phone calls, bugged recordings, and snatched voice mail messages. When Anderson sends him to a mysterious island to interpret a secret conference between Central African warlords, Bruno thinks he is helping Britain bring peace to a bloody corner of the world. But then he begins to hear things not intended for his ears...

Le Carré DVDs and VHS Tapes from Amazon

Which do you like?

Vote for your favourite from Le Carre.

Share your knowledge. Make a difference.

The books of John Le Carre

Rate this Lens

Who is John Le Carre?

Explore related pages

Books by John Le Carre Table of Contents

John Le Carre writes gripping espionage novels

A Brief Biography of John Le Carre

How John Le Carre was inspired to write

A Brief Biography contd.

Background to some of the early John Le Carre Books

Learn more about these books on Amazon

Buy a used book for a real bargain!

A Brief Biography contd. again

Le Carre Novels Published 1963 and 1965

Amazon has great reviews about these books

The "Used Price" is usually tremendous value!

A Brief Biography contd. yet again

Not so brief now

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Clips from a great series

There are more reviews on Amazon

Look at the fantastic value when buying used books!

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Charlie Rose interviewing David Cornwell (John Le Carre)

The Tailor of Panama

Charlie Rose: October 24, 1996

How about an audio book?

For your ipod or mp3 player

Le Carré DVDs and VHS Tapes from Amazon

Which do you like?

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

More Le Carre Books on Amazon

The Used Versions Really Are Fantastic Value For Money

John Le Carre Best Sellers

Available from Amazon.co.uk

The Le Carré SuperStore

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (DVD)

Smiley's People (DVD)

Understanding John Le Carre

A Perfect Spy (DVD)

A Murder of Quality (DVD)

Great Le Carre Titles on eBay

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is my Absolute Favourite

For All eBay Sellers

or those of you aspiring to be an eBay Seller

Do You Have a Favourite Le Carre Novel?

Vote for it here!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

#18

#19

#20

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

^#1

^#2

^#3

^#4

^#5

^#1

^#2

^#3

^#4

^#5

^#6

^#7

^#8

^#9

^#10

^#11

^#12

^#13

^#14

^#15

^#16

^#17

^#18

^#19

^#20