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Features

New George Smiley novel from John le Carré’s son Nick Harkaway

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What re-reading John le Carré taught me

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Reading lists

Where to start reading  John le Carré’s books

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John le Carré, the great chronicler of our age, has died

John le Carré and front cover of 'Agent Running in the Field'

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News

John le Carré to narrate the audiobook of his new novel ‘Agent Running in the Field’

Florence Pugh reads The Little Drummer Girl

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Your first look at the TV adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl

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A brief history of George Smiley

Explore Smiley's London from the John le Carré novels

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Explore Smiley’s London

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Extracts

John le Carré on offending fellow spies, and introducing them to Alec Guinness

John le Carré to publish new novel A Legacy of Spies with Viking Books

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Inside the secret pages of John le Carré’s new book

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John le Carré on The Night Manager and other adaptations of his books

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The Night Manager by John le Carré

Call for the Dead

The Smiley Collection

After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the man's death, he begins his own investigation, meeting with Fennan's widow to find out what could have led him to such desperation. But on the very day that Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man. Do the East Germans - and their agents - know more about this man's death than the Circus previously imagined? 
 
Le Carré's debut novel, Call for the Dead, introduced the tenacious and retiring George Smiley in a gripping tale of espionage and deceit.

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily Telegraph 
An apparent suicide. A deepening mystery. A letter from a dead man... 
Secret agent George Smiley is in trouble. A Foreign Office civil servant, Samuel Fennan, has killed himself, and Smiley realizes that Intelligence head Maston is going to set him up to take the blame. Beginning his own investigation, Smiley is shocked to receive an urgent letter from the dead man, and slowly uncovers a network of deceit and betrayal. Le Carré's debut novel was also the first of his many books to feature the tenacious, unassuming and singular George Smiley.

John le Carré was born in 1931. After studying at the university of Bern and Oxford and teaching at Eton, he began a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a civil servant, and acclaim swiftly followed, consolidated by The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. He died on 12 December 2020.

The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020

A Private Spy

A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carré's own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the 'chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live. 
 
We find le Carré writing to Sir Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. What emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name.

John le Carré was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the penname. 
_____ 
 
'The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carré's final masterpiece' 5*, Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph 
_____ 
 
A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carré's own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness. Beginning with his 1940s childhood, it includes accounts of his National Service and his time at Oxford, and his days teaching the 'chinless, pointy-nosed gooseberry-eyed British lords' at Eton. It describes his entry into MI5 and the rise of the Iron Curtain, and the flowering of his career as a novelist in reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall. Through his letters we travel with him from the Second World War period to the immediate moment in which we live. We find le Carré writing to Sir Alec Guinness to persuade him to take on the role of George Smiley, and later arguing the immorality of the War on Terror with the chief of the German internal security service. What emerges is a portrait not only of the writer, or of the global intellectual, but, in his own words, of the very private, very passionate and very real man behind the name. 
_____ 
 
Includes letters to: 
John Banville 
William Burroughs 
John Cheever 
Stephen Fry 
Graham Greene 
Sir Alec Guinness 
Hugh Laurie 
Ben Macintyre 
Ian McEwan 
Gary Oldman 
Philip Roth 
Philippe Sands 
Sir Tom Stoppard 
Margaret Thatcher 
And more...

Each letter from John le Carré was a beautifully written miniature essay ... fascinating

A Private Spy testifies to le Carré's universally acknowledged gifts as a raconteur, mimic and caricaturist

Unsurprisingly, he was a brilliant correspondent. Revelations tumble out...These engaging letters are edited with great fairness and sensitivity by a family member, his son Tim Cornwell

The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carré's final masterpiece, 5*

[He had a] rare command of language and unique understanding of how the world really works

John le Carré was born in 1931. He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while working in British Intelligence (MI5&6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

Stories from My Life: NOW A MAJOR APPLE TV MOTION PICTURE

The Pigeon Tunnel

The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré's memoir and his first work of non-fiction, is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women who inspired some of his most enthralling novels. From terrifying meetings with Yasser Arafat in war-torn Beirut to brilliantly observed encounters with the great figures of twentieth century film, from Stanley Kubrick to Alec Guinness. The reader is swept along not just by the chilling winds of the Cold War or by the author's frightening journeys into places of terrible violence but, most importantly, by the author's inimitable voice. 
 
In this astonishing work we see our world, both public and private, through the eyes of one of the world's greatest writers.

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING MEMOIR OF SPY-WRITING LEGEND JOHN LE CARRÉ 
 
'As recognizable a writer as Dickens or Austen' Financial Times 
 
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War to a career as a writer, John le Carré has lived a unique life. 
 
In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive - reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he's interviewing a German terrorist in her desert prison or watching Alec Guinness preparing for his role as George Smiley, this book invites us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood. 
 
Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer's journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters. 
 
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times' Guardian 
 
'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré . . . These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 &amp; 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel, Silverview, was published in 2021.

A Delicate Truth

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. 
 
Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. 
 
If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

'With A Delicate Truth, le Carré has in a sense come home. And it's a splendid homecoming . . . the novel is the most satisfying, subtle and compelling of his recent oeuvre' The Times 
 
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. 
 
Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. 
 
If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent? 
__________________ 
 
'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times, from the Second World War to the 'War on Terror'' Guardian 
 
'The master of the modern spy novel returns . . . John le Carré was never a spy-turned-writer, he was a writer who found his canvas in espionage' Daily Mail 
 
'A brilliant climax, with sinister deaths, casual torture, wrecked lives and shameful compromises' Observer

Our Kind of Traitor

An English couple, Perry and Gail, are taking an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis. 
 
What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's Intelligence Establishment.

In John le Carré's electrifying novel Our Kind of Traitor, innocents abroad are drawn into the darkest recesses of the financial world. 
 
Britain is in the depths of recession. A left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis. 
 
What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's Intelligence Establishment. 
 
'If you want to know about the state of Britain today, forget the Booker shortlist. Just read John le Carré's latest thriller' Evening Standard 
 
'Few recent plays have had dialogue as good, and few recent literary novels can boast a set of characters so vividly imagined. Our Kind of Traitor is a teasing, beguiling, masterly performance' Sunday Times

A Legacy of Spies

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good. 
 
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own story, John le Carré has given us a novel of superb and enduring quality.

'A brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme cannon' Evening Standard 
 
'Vintage le Carré. Immensely clever, breathtaking. Really, not since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect' John Banville, Guardian 
 
Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London are to be scrutinised by a generation with no memory of the Cold War. Somebody must be made to pay for innocent blood once spilt in the name of the greater good. 
 
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own story, John le Carré has given us a novel of superb and enduring quality. 
 
'Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched. There is only one le Carré. Eloquent, subtle, sublimely paced' Daily Mail 
 
'Splendid, fast-paced, riveting' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times 
 
'Remarkable. Vintage John le Carré. It gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years. Like wine, le Carré's writing has got richer with age. Don't wait for the paperback' The Times 
 
'Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He's in the first rank' Ian McEwan 
 
'The literary event of the Autumn' Evening Standard 
 
'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris

John le Carré

Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage series 
 
A Russian mole has infiltrated the British establishment - and the spymaster Smiley must dig them out... 
 
George Smiley, formerly of the Secret Intelligence Service, is contemplating his new life in retirement when he is called back on an unexpected mission. His task is to hunt down an agent implanted by Moscow Central at the very heart of the Circus - one who has been buried deep there for years. The dogged, troubled Smiley can discount nobody from being the traitor, even if it is one of those closest to him.

John le Carré

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

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