With the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, people predicted that John Le Carre would have nothing more to write about. In effect, he said, ''I read my own obituary...''

Instead, he has never been short of material, writing in various novels about conflicts and corruption wherever he finds them, in governments and also in corporations that are the equivalent of mini-nations.

It might be said that he is the spy novelist who came in from the cold war.

John le Carré (with the accented "e" that can result in a very frustrating keyword search) is the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell, an English writer of espionage novels. Le Carré has resided in St. Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than forty years.

Early life and career

The son of Richard Thomas Archibald Cornwell (1906–75) and Olive (Gassy) Cornwell, John le Carré was born on October 19, 1931. The actress Charlotte Cornwell is his sister. He began his formal schooling at St. Andrew's preparatory school near Pangbourne, Berkshire, and continued at Sherborne School.

During 1948–49, he studied foreign languages at the University of Berne, then studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1956. He then taught at Eton College for two years; leaving in 1959 to spend the next five years working for the British Foreign Service.

He initially served as the Second Secretary in the British Embassy in Bonn, but eventually was transferred to Hamburg for service as a political consul. Eventually, le Carré was recruited into MI6. He wrote his first novel in 1961, while still a member of the intelligence service.

Le Carré's career as a secret agent was destroyed by Kim Philby, a British double agent, who blew the cover of dozens of British agents to the KGB, David Cornwell being among them. Years later, le Carré    carefully depicted and analysed Philby's weakness and deceit in the guise of Gerald, the mole hunted by George Smiley in the central novel of le Carré's work, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Then followed the revelation that fictional spymaster George Smiley was modelled on former Lincoln College, Oxford, rector Vivian H. H. Green.

In 1954, he married Alison Ann Veronica Sharp and had three sons, Simon, Stephen and Timothy. After a 1971 divorce, he married Valérie Jane Eustace, a book editor with Hodder & Stoughton. The marriage produced one son, Nicholas, who writes as the author Nick Harkaway.

As an author

Nearly all of le Carré's novels fall in the spy-thriller genre, with a particular emphasis on the Cold War. A notable exception is The Naïve and Sentimental Lover. This novel has autobiographical elements as it is based on the author's relationship with James and Susan Kennaway following the breakdown of le Carré's first marriage.

His first two novels, Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, closely follow the mystery fiction approach, where the emphasis is on a complex riddle that hero George Smiley must solve. In later, longer works, such as The Honourable Schoolboy and The Night Manager, le Carré approaches his material more as novelist and less as a mystery writer, focusing on the in-depth development of his characters.

Le Carré's work is in many ways a critical and reasoned response to the sensationalism of the James Bond genre of spy writing. His heroes are three-dimensional, their engagement with the world more realistic, and their circumstances markedly unglamorous. There is little of the 'action thriller' in his stories, no high-tech gadgetry, and only a limited degree of violence. The drama comes primarily in the intensive mental activity of his protagonists.

In some novels, such as A Small Town in Germany, almost the entire story unfolds in the form of dialogue between the major characters. Le Carré is widely hailed as writing some of the most literary and philosophically significant genre fiction of the 20th century.

His works also differ from the Bond books in that they are morally complex. There are constant reminders of the fallibility of western espionage systems and western countries in general, often with the implication that the Soviet bloc and the NATO bloc are essentially two sides of the same coin.

The simplicity of the good-versus-SMERSH or SPECTRE world of Ian Fleming has no place in le Carré's work, where the spies seem to serve espionage more than any ideology. Le Carré is more interested in the uncertainty inherent in spycraft -- the most unimpeachable information from the enemy might always prove to be bait or a trap, a logic that tends to render the information obtained far less useful. In short, his books leave behind an unmistakable air of scepticism.

A Perfect Spy, le Carré's most autobiographical novel, deals with the author's peculiar relationship with his father.

Film and television

In 1965, Martin Ritt directed the first film adaptation of a John le Carré novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, featuring Richard Burton as Alec Leamas. In 1966, Sidney Lumet directed The Deadly Affair, a film of the novel Call for the Dead. In 1969, Frank Pierson directed the film of The Looking Glass War.

In 1979, the BBC adapted the first novel in the Quest for Karla trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, into a television miniseries featuring Alec Guinness as George Smiley. In 1981, Guinness reprised Smiley in the BBC adaptation of Smiley's People, the trilogy's last novel.

The trilogy's middle novel, The Honourable Schoolboy, a story about Jerry Westerby (Joss Ackland in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), was not adapted because BBC thought a production in South East Asia to be prohibitively expensive.

In 1984, Diane Keaton was The Little Drummer Girl. In 1987, A Perfect Spy was adapted to television miniseries. In 1990, Sean Connery was Barley Blair in Fred Schepisi's film of The Russia House.

In 1991, A Murder of Quality was adapted by Gavin Millar for television. In 2001, former cinema James Bond -- Pierce Brosnan -- was the spy in The Tailor of Panama. In 2005, the film of The Constant Gardener was released, based on the novel set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya. The poverty so affected the film crew that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education to those villages. John le Carré is a patron of the charity.

Politics and honours

Le Carré published an essay entitled "The United States Has Gone Mad" in The Times in January 2003, protesting against the war in Iraq, saying: "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history."

He has turned down a number of awards, including a knighthood. He is the author of a testimonial in The Future of the NHS (2006) (ISBN 1858113695) edited by Dr. Michelle Tempest.

He has had a long-running feud with the author Salman Rushdie, arguing that the publication of Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, is an affront to Muslim sensibilities -- predictably placing Rushdie and other people connected with the publication in danger. Rushdie in turn accused le Carré of misunderstanding his work and siding with those who imposed a fatwa on him, forcing Rushdie into hiding.

Bibliography

Novels

• Call for the Dead (1961)
• A Murder of Quality (1962)
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) (Edgar Award 1965, Best Novel)
• The Looking-Glass War (1965)
• A Small Town in Germany (1968)
• The Naïve and Sentimental Lover (1971)
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
• The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
• Smiley's People (1979)
• The Little Drummer Girl (1983) 
•  Perfect Spy (1986)
• The Russia House (1989)
• The Secret Pilgrim (1990)
• The Night Manager (1993)
• Our Game (1995)
• The Tailor of Panama (1996)
• Single & Single (1999)
• The Constant Gardener (2001)
• Absolute Friends (2003)
• The Mission Song (2006)
• A Most Wanted Man (2008)

Non-fiction

The Unbearable Peace (1991)

Short stories

Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn? (1967) published in the Saturday Evening Post January 28, 1967
What Ritual is Being Observed Tonight? (1968) published in the Saturday Evening Post November 2, 1968

Omnibus

• The Incongruous Spy (1964) (containing Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality)
• The Quest for Karla (1982) (containing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People)

Screenplays

• End of the Line (1970) broadcast June 29, 1970
• A Murder of Quality (1991)
• The Tailor of Panama (2001) with John Boorman and Andrew Davies

Executive producer

The Tailor of Panama (2001)

Actor

The Little Drummer Girl (1984, as David Cornwell)

A TIP FOR COLLECTORS:

FOR PEACE OF MIND, BUY FROM A PROFESSIONAL. Another handy thought to keep in mind is that once in a while, you'll run across a book that says something like: "Second Printing before publication." What this usually indicates is that word leaked out that the book is very good -- and that because the publisher is anticipating many sales right away, they have had another printing before the book is officially released to the public.

This guide was assembled by the owner of the eBay Store "Books Uncommon." Any errors are mine. For those I apologize.

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