by Adam Sisman
2 ‘Smiley’s People are Alive and Well’, Guardian Review, 16 November 1989.
3 Address to Exeter University, 13 July 1990.
4 DC to Stephen Fry, 4 March 1995.
5 DC to Nicholas Shakespeare, 14 January 1989 and 19 April 1991.
6 DC to Cyrus Ghani, 20 September 1996.
7 DC to Nicholas Shakespeare, 29 March 1995.
8 DC to Nicholas Shakespeare, 19 April 1991.
9 DC to John Margetson, 24 October 1991.
10 DC to Vivian Green, 24 October 1991.
11 The Night Manager (Coronet, 1994), pp. 404–5.
12 Ibid., p. 389.
13 Ibid., pp. 164 and 121.
14 Ibid., p. 161.
15 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of The Night Manager (2001).
16 DC to John Calley, 30 August 1991.
17 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of The Night Manager (2001).
18 ‘When Harry Met Willie’, Newsweek, 26 October 1992.
19 Rupert Murdoch to DC, 1 November 1991; DC to Rupert Murdoch, 10 November 1991; Philippe Sands, ‘Conversations with John le Carré’, FT Magazine, 6 September 2013. In this interview David suggests that he demanded lunch from Murdoch, but the surviving correspondence suggests otherwise.
20 Ed Vulliamy, ‘William the Conqueror’, Observer, 13 July 2003.
21 Robert Harris to DC, 12 and 22 January 1991; DC to Harris, 20 January 1991 (misdated 1990).
22 ‘Grovel’, Private Eye, 26 February 1993.
23 ‘Competing quests for le Carré’, Bookseller, 22 January 1993.
24 David Sexton, ‘The personal cold war of le Carré’, Evening Standard, 16 February 1993, quoting a story that had appeared some weeks earlier in the same newspaper’s ‘Londoner’s Diary’.
25 Tim Walker, ‘Fatherland author Robert Harris has John Le Carré in his sights’, Daily Telegraph, 24 March 2011.
26 DC to Susan Vereker, 16 February [dated 1992, but it must be 1993].
27 ‘Le Carré sues Graham Lord’, Bookseller, 29 January 1993.
28 Private Eye, 15 January 1993.
29 ‘In confidence?’, Bookseller, 23 April 1993.
30 David Sexton, ‘The personal cold war of le Carré’.
31 ‘Delia holds battling titans at bay’, Bookseller, 23 July 1993.
32 DC to Tim Hely Hutchinson, 10 September and 23 July 1993.
33 Tim Hely Hutchinson to JC, 29 October 1993.
34 ‘A Rushdie to Judgment on le Carré defection?’, Publishers Weekly, 22 June 1998.
35 Michael Ratcliffe, ‘Good Hearts, Angry Men’, Observer, 27 June 1993.
36 Julian Symons, ‘Our Man in Zurich’, New York Times, 27 June 1993.
37 Penny Perrick, ‘Battle of the Big Guns’, Sunday Times, 27 June 1993.
38 George H. W. Bush to John le Carré, 26 September 1993 and 2 March 1995.
39 David Remnick, ‘Le Carré’s New War’, New York Review of Books, 12 August 1993.
40 DC to Alec Guinness, 16 July 1996.
41 Stanley Kubrick to DC, 8 November 1992.
42 Michael Herr, Kubrick (Grove Atlantic, New York, 2000), pp. 8 and 19.
43 ‘Behind an Iron Curtain’ (interview with Zoë Heller), Independent on Sunday, 1 August 1993.
44 ‘Profile: Running Away from the Circus’, Sunday Times, 27 October 1996.
45 Martin Neild, ‘John le Carré’, 30 October, published in the Sunday Times on 17 November 1996.
46 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of Our Game (2001), and ‘My Friends in the New Russia: In Search of a Few Good Crooks, Cops and Former Agents’, New York Times, 19 February 1995. Much of what follows in the next few paragraphs draws on these two sources.
47 Foreword to the Franklin Library edition of Our Game (1995).
48 ‘Demons Dance as the West Watches’, Observer, 18 December 1994.
49 ‘We Distorted our own Minds’ (interview with Walter Isaacson and James Kelly), Time, 5 July 1993.
50 DC to Sydney Pollack, 27 May 1994.
51 Piers Paul Read, Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography (Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 553–4.
52 ‘Smiley’s supper with Karla’, The Times, 1 March 1977.
53 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (Random House, New York, 2002), pp. 138 and 244–5.
22: ‘He makes us look so good’
1 Stephen Fry to DC, 22 February 1995, 25 January 1991, 18 August and 1 December 1993 and 3 November 1994; DC to Stephen Fry, 13 September 1993.
2 DC to Stephen Fry, 4 March 1995.
3 ‘Colin Melmoth’ (Stephen Fry) to DC, 12 and 16 March; DC to ‘Mellers’, 12 March 1995.
4 Michael Ratcliffe, ‘The Joe’s Revenge’, Observer, 30 April 1995; Sean O’Brien, ‘Exercising Tradecraft’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 May 1995; Louis Menand, ‘Under Western Eyes’, New York Review of Books, 20 April 1995.
5 John Updike, ‘Le Carré’s Game’, New Yorker, 20 March 1995.
6 DC to ‘Hils and J & J’ [unidentified], 31 March 1995.
7 Diane Johnson, ‘Missionary’, New York Review of Books, 20 May 1999.
8 Marianne Macdonald, ‘Collapse of Net Book Agreement “within months” ’, Independent, 26 December 1994.
9 ‘Shops Go Cold on le Carré’, Bookseller, 7 April 1995.
10 DC to Tim Hely Hutchinson, 7 April 1995.
11 DC to Martin Neild, 25 May 1995.
12 Annette McCann, ‘Cut-price le Carré opens book war’, Scotsman, 1 May 1995.
13 Roger Tredre, ‘Check out the value of cut-price literature’, Observer, 7 May 1995.
14 ‘Cranfield plays their game’, Daily Telegraph, 16 May 1995.
15 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of The Night Manager (2001).
16 ‘Quel Panama!’, New York Times Magazine, 20 October 1996.
17 The Tailor of Panama (Coronet edition, 1997), p. 78.
18 DC to Richard Koster, 7 August 1998.
19 Interview with Mark Lawson broadcast on BBC 4, 5 October 2008.
20 Sior Pendel to Martin Neild, 2 December; DC to Sior Pendel, 4 December 1996.
21 Norman Rush, ‘Spying and Lying’, New York Times Book Review, 20 October 1996.
22 ‘The Tailor of Panama’, New York Times Book Review, 3 and 17 November 1996.
23 ‘John le Carré: The Art of Fiction No. 149’ (interview with George Plimpton), Paris Review, 143 (Summer 1997).
24 Teddy Preuss, Ha’aretz, 14 March 1977; Preuss to DC, 23 March 1977.
25 Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Sir David Spedding’ (obituary), Guardian; Alan Judd, afterword to the anonymous obituary ‘Sir David Spedding’, Daily Telegraph; both 14 June 2001.
26 Sarah Lyall, ‘Cloak, Dagger and Abuses of a New Era’, New York Times, 3 October 2008.
27 John le Carré, ‘Dark Side of the Star’, Guardian, 15 November, letters to the editor, 19 and 21 November 1997; Salman Rushdie, letters to the editor, 18, 20 and 22 November; Christopher Hitchens, letter to the editor, 20 November 1997.
28 DC to Tim Cornwell, 25 November 1997.
29 DC to Roland Philipps, 25 November 1997.
30 William Shawcross, ‘Stinking Satanic Self-Righteousness’, Guardian, 25 November 1997.
31 DC to William Shawcross, 29 November 1997.
32 Rainer Heumann 26.9.1923–5.3.1996 (privately published, Zurich).
33 ‘A Rushdie to Judgment on le Carré defection?’, Publishers Weekly, 22 June 1998.
34 DC to Richard Koster, 28 June 1998.
23: The Secret Centre
1 Foreword to the Lamplighter edition of Single & Single (2001).
2 Ibid.
3 ‘In Ronnie’s Court’.
4 ‘Son of a Swindler’, Sunday Times, 1 July 2001.
5 ‘Secrets and Lies’ (interview with Alan Franks), The Times, 13 February 1999.
6 D. J. Taylor, ‘Agents of Evil’, Guardian, 20 February 1999.
7 ‘The Constant Muse’. Much of what follows in the next f
ew paragraphs is drawn from this source.
8 Box 410, John le Carré Archive, Bodleian Library.
9 ‘The Biggest Pushers of All’, Spectator, 16 December 2000.
10 Ann Treneman, ‘Le Carré comes in from the cold’, The Times, 9 December 2000.
11 Yvette Pierpaoli to DC, 14 April 1999.
12 DC to Roland Philipps and Tim Hely Hutchinson; Hely Hutchinson to DC, 24 May 1999.
13 Roland Philipps to Tim Hely Hutchinson, 30 June 2000.
14 ‘I don’t miss Smiley’ (interview with Robert McCrum), Observer, 17 December 2000.
15 ‘Secrets and Lies’ (interview with Alan Franks).
16 Sean O’Brien, ‘A Fate Far Worse than Death’, Times Literary Supplement, 5 January 2001.
17 John Sutherland, ‘This Time it’s Personal’, Sunday Times, 17 December 2000.
18 DC to Roland Philipps, 19 January 2001.
19 DC to Jamie Hodder-Williams, 30 September 2001.
20 DC to Andreas Setter and Katharina Amacker, Novartis AG, 11 April 2001.
21 Barbara Stocking to John le Carré, 29 June 2001; DC to Roland Philipps, 6 July 2001.
22 Hilary Mantel, ‘The Devil’s Playground’, New York Review of Books, 19 July 2001.
23 Rand Richards Cooper, ‘Company Man’, New York Times, 7 January 2001.
24 DC to Roland Philipps, 8 April 2001.
25 DC to Roland Philipps, 19 January 2001.
26 Foreword to the new edition of The Tailor of Panama, April 2001.
27 ‘My vote? I would like to punish Blair’ (interview with David Hare), Daily Telegraph, 17 May 2001.
28 ‘John le Carré: The Secret Centre’ (interview with Nigel Williams), BBC 2, broadcast on Boxing Day, 2000.
29 Timothy Garton Ash, ‘The Real Le Carré’, New Yorker, 15 March 1999.
30 The journalist Matt Born was researching a story based on revelations in le Carré’s forthcoming BBC 2 interview, published as ‘Le Carré to reveal his secret past as a spy’, Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2000.
31 Peter Barnard and Dominic Kennedy, ‘Le Carré confesses: I spied at Oxford’, The Times, 26 December 2000.
32 DC to Vivian Green, 25 January 2001.
33 DC to Roland Philipps, 27 and 30 June and 14 August 2001.
24: ‘Mr Angry’
1 DC to Roland Philipps, 19 January 2001.
2 ‘In a Plot far from the Cold, le Carré Sums up the Past’ (interview with Mel Gussow), New York Times, 19 December 2000.
3 DC to Roland Philipps, 8 April 2001.
4 DC to Irene Brendel, 28 June 2001.
5 Ibid.
6 Absolute Friends, p. 198.
7 DC to Andrea Daschner, 9 March 2004.
8 Absolute Friends, p. 199.
9 ‘The Spy World is “My Playpen”: 40 Years of Making a Point in Novels, and Rising Activism at 72’ (interview with Mel Gussow), New York Times, 7 January 2004.
10 Ibid.
11 DC to Miranda and John Margetson, 17 November 2002.
12 DC to Kaspar and Erica von Almen, 11 January 2003.
13 DC to Miranda and John Margetson, 17 November 2002.
14 ‘The United States of America Has Gone Mad’, The Times, 15 January 2003.
15 Absolute Friends, pp. 255–7.
16 Box 480, John le Carré Archive, Bodleian Library.
17 DC to Anthony Barnett, 30 June 2003.
18 Lev Grossman, ‘The Spy in Winter’, Time, 12 January 2004.
19 ‘The betrayal of Smiley’s people’ (interview with James Naughtie), The Times, 29 November 2003.
20 Robert McCrum, ‘A Master’s Voice’, Observer, 7 December 2003.
21 Stephen Amidon, ‘Dispatches from an angry old man’, Sunday Times, 14 December 2003.
22 T. J. Binyon, ‘Too Furious for Fiction; Moral Outage Overwhelms le Carré’s Latest offering’, Evening Standard.
23 George Walden, ‘Tinker tailor soldier propagandist’, Daily Telegraph, 15 December 2003.
24 Daniel Johnson, ‘John le Carré is Mr Angry now’, Daily Telegraph, 2 December 2003.
25 A. N. Wilson, ‘Le Carré: Old Wars on New Fronts’, Daily Mail, 26 December 2003.
26 DC to Vivian Green, 13 December 2003.
27 Steven Poole, ‘Spies and Lies’, Guardian, 20 December 2003.
28 Geoffrey Wheatcroft, ‘Smiley’s (Anti-American) People’, New York Times, 11 January 2004.
29 James M. Murphy, ‘Friends of the Friends’, Times Literary Supplement, 2 January 2004.
30 Michiko Kakutani, ‘Adding Reality’s Worries to a Thriller’, New York Times, 7 January 2004.
31 DC to Anthony Barnett, 1 January 2004.
32 DC to Vivian Green, 16 February 2004.
33 DC to John Margetson, 30 July 2004.
34 Vicki Phillips to Karen Geary, 6 August 2007 (for The Times Book Group).
35 DC to Michela Wrong (by email), 21 November 2004.
36 ‘Dear Clark County Voter’, Guardian, 13 October 2004.
37 DC to Jean Cornwell, 21 October 2004.
38 ‘A guide through the complexities of my plots’.
39 DC to Bruce Hunter, 16 September 2004, 7 and 14 March, 13 April and 1 May 2005; Hunter to DC, 8 March, 11 and 26 April, 9 May 2005; Hunter to JC, 1 June 2005; JC to Hunter, 11 May and 15 June 2005.
40 ‘My Date with the Warlords’, Seven (Sunday Telegraph magazine), 10 September 2006.
41 ‘Getting Congo’s Wealth to its People’, Boston Globe, 22 December 2006.
42 Dan Zigmond, ‘Back to moral ambiguity’, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 September 2006.
43 Philip Caputo, ‘The Interpreter’, Washington Post, 17 September 2006.
44 Sam Allis, ‘Fall from Grace: Blunt passion trumps ambiguity in a disappointing novel from John le Carré’, Boston Globe, 17 September 2006.
45 Robert McCrum, ‘Back into the Heart of Darkness’, Observer, 24 September 2006.
46 John Dugdale, ‘Carnage in Congo’, Sunday Times, 17 September 2006.
47 Christopher Hope, ‘Candide in Africa’, Guardian, 23 September 2006.
48 William Finnegan, ‘Double-Cross in the Congo’, New York Review of Books, 12 April 2007.
49 ‘Scenes from a Secret Life’, dated 11 December 2006.
25: Beating the System
1 DC to Nicholas Shakespeare, 14 November 2006.
2 ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’. Much of what follows is taken from this source.
3 Elizabeth Renzetti, ‘Slinkers, Jailers, Soldiers, Lies’, Globe and Mail (Toronto), 4 October 2008.
4 ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’.
5 DC to Anthony Barnett (by email), 23 March 2008.
6 Philippe Sands, ‘Conversations with John le Carré’, FT Magazine, 6 September 2013.
7 DC to Roland Philipps, 13 December 2007.
8 DC and JC to Bruce Hunter, 5 September 2007.
9 DC to Bruce Hunter, 31 March 2008.
10 Rod Liddle, ‘John le Carré has a surprising new story to tell’, Sunday Times News Review, 14 September 2008.
11 Maurice Chittenden, ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, defector – John le Carré: I nearly left the West’, Sunday Times, 14 September 2008.
12 John le Carré, Times Online, 20 September 2008.
13 Alan Furst, ‘Out in the Cold’, New York Times, 11 October 2008.
14 Charles Cumming, ‘A Most Wanted Man’, Daily Telegraph, 20 September 2008.
15 Hari Kunzru, ‘Trapdoor to the secret world’, Guardian, 27 September 2008.
16 Andrew O’Hagan, ‘The Weather Makers’, New York Review of Books, 28 May 2009.
17 Michiko Kakutani, ‘Terrorists and Spies, Weaving their Webs’, New York Times, 6 October 2008.
18 DC to August Hanning, 24 December 2008.
19 DC to Roland Philipps, 17 April and 16 October 2009; DC to Jamie Hodder-Williams, 16 October 2009.
20 DC to John Margetson, 3 August 2010.
21 DC to Roland Philipps, 16 June 2009.
22 Bookseller,
26 October 2009.
23 DC to Roland Philipps, 7 February 2010.
24 James Naughtie, ‘Our Kind of Traitor’, Sunday Telegraph, 12 September 2010.
25 [Unsigned], ‘Our Kind of Traitor’, Scotsman, 10 September 2010.
26 Christopher Tayler, ‘Our Kind of Traitor’, Guardian, 10 September 2010.
27 Michiko Kakutani, ‘Innocents Caught in a Web of Intrigue’, New York Times, 11 October 2010.
28 Lev Grossman, ‘The Spy in Winter’, Time, 12 January 2004.
29 DC to John Margetson, 3 August; Margetson to DC (by email), 6 August 2010.
30 Peter Morgan, interview with Christina Radish, collider.com, 14 October 2010; Francesca Martin, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Film Star’, Guardian, 4 June 2008.
31 Anthony Lane, ‘I Spy: John le Carré and the rise of George Smiley’, New Yorker, 12 December 2011.
32 Alison Flood, ‘Salman Rushdie and John le Carré end fatwa face-off’, Guardian, 12 November 2012.
33 Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton (Jonathan Cape, 2012), pp. 530–1.
34 Jack Malvern, ‘My feud with Salman Rushdie is all in the past, says John le Carré’, The Times, 12 November 2012.
35 ‘Espionage is an accident’ (interview with Olga Craig), Seven (Sunday Telegraph magazine), 29 August 2010.
36 ‘I do give a damn’ (interview with Stuart Jeffries), Guardian, 6 October 2005.
37 Jon Stock, ‘A Delicate Truth’, Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2013.
38 Robert McCrum, ‘A Delicate Truth’, Observer, 20 April 2013.
39 Günther Grosser, ‘Als hätte er von Snowden gewusst’, Berliner Zeitung, 17 November 2013.
40 Robert Gore-Langton, ‘The novel that made spies angry’, Sunday Express, 8 August 2013.
41 Jonathan Yardley, ‘The book that changed spy fiction’, Washington Post, 6 September 2013.
42 William Boyd, ‘Rereading: The Spy who Came in from the Cold’, Guardian, 24 July 2010.
43 Adam Dawtrey, ‘Le Carré’s Sons Spy Opportunity’, Variety, 24 September 2011.
44 DC to August Hanning, 18 April 2011.
45 Interview with Andrej Sokolow from ‘Monsters and Critics’ website, 18 October 2011.
Select Bibliography
1. Manuscript Sources
David Cornwell’s private archive is currently kept at his home in Cornwall. Unless otherwise stated, all letters and documents cited derive from this source, or have been supplied privately by other owners. David’s son Timothy has an archive of material relating to his mother. The majority of John le Carré’s surviving manuscripts are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (see below).