Spy fiction
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of communism and fascism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
History
Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua might count as the first Spy Story in world literature. Three thousand years before James Bond seduced Pussy Galore and turned her into his ally against Goldfinger, the spies sent by General Joshua into the city of Jericho did much the same with Rahab the Harlot."Nineteenth century
Spy fiction as a genre started to emerge during the 19th Century. Early examples of the espionage novel are The Spy and The Bravo, by American novelist James Fenimore Cooper. The Bravo attacks European anti-republicanism, by depicting Venice as a city-state where a ruthless oligarchy wears the mask of the "serene republic".In nineteenth-century France, the Dreyfus Affair contributed much to public interest in espionage. For some twelve years, the Affair, which involved elements of international espionage, treason, and antisemitism, dominated French politics. The details were reported by the world press: an Imperial German penetration agent betraying to Germany the secrets of the General Staff of the French Army; the French counter-intelligence riposte of sending a charwoman to rifle the trash in the German Embassy in Paris, were news that inspired successful spy fiction.
At least two Sherlock Holmes stories have clear espionage themes. In The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, Holmes recovers the text of a secret Naval Treaty between Britain and Italy, stolen by a daring spy. In His Last Bow, Holmes himself acts as a double agent, providing Germany with a lot of false information on the eve of WWI.
Twentieth century
The major themes of a spy in the lead-up to the First World War were the continuing rivalry between the European colonial powers for dominance in Asia, the growing threat of conflict in Europe, the domestic threat of revolutionaries and anarchists, and historical romance.Kim by Rudyard Kipling concerns the Anglo–Russian "Great Game", which consisted of a geopolitical rivalry and strategic warfare for supremacy in Central Asia, usually in Afghanistan. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad examines the psychology and ideology motivating the socially marginal men and women of a revolutionary cell. A diplomat from an unnamed embassy forces a double-agent, Verloc, to organise a failed attempt to bomb the Greenwich Observatory in the hope that the revolutionaries will be blamed. Conrad's next novel, Under Western Eyes, follows a reluctant spy sent by the Russian Empire to infiltrate a group of revolutionaries based in Geneva. G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is a metaphysical thriller ostensibly based on the infiltration of an anarchist organisation by detectives, but the story is actually a vehicle for exploring society's power structures and the nature of suffering.
The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, served as a spy hunter for the British government in the stories "The Adventure of the Second Stain", and "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans". In "His Last Bow", he served Crown and country as a double agent, transmitting false intelligence to Imperial Germany on the eve of the Great War.
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy chronicled an English aristocrat's derring-do in rescuing French aristocrats from the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution.
But the term "spy novel" was defined by The Riddle of the Sands by Irish author Erskine Childers. The Riddle of the Sands described a British yachtsman and his friend cruising off the North Sea coast of Germany who turned amateur spies when they discover a secret German plan to invade Britain. Its success created a market for the invasion literature subgenre, which was flooded by imitators. William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim became the most widely read and most successful British writers of spy fiction, especially of invasion literature. Their prosaic style and formulaic stories, produced voluminously from 1900 to 1914, proved of low literary merit.
During the First World War
During the War, John Buchan became the pre-eminent British spy novelist. His well-written stories portray the Great War as a "clash of civilisations" between Western civilization and barbarism. His notable novels are The Thirty-nine Steps, Greenmantle and sequels, all featuring the heroic Scotsman Richard Hannay. In France Gaston Leroux published the spy thriller Rouletabille chez Krupp, in which a detective, Joseph Rouletabille, engages in espionage.Inter-war period
After the Russian Revolution, the quality of spy fiction declined, perhaps because the Bolshevik enemy won the Russian Civil War. Thus, the inter-war spy story usually concerns combating the Red Menace, which was perceived as another "clash of civilizations".Spy fiction was dominated by British authors during this period, initially former intelligence officers and agents writing from inside the trade. Examples include Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham, which accurately portrays spying in the First World War, and The Mystery of Tunnel 51 by Alexander Wilson whose novels convey an uncanny portrait of the first head of the Secret Intelligence Service, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the original 'C'.
In the book Literary Agents, Anthony Masters wrote: "Ashenden's adventures come nearest to the real-life experiences of his creator"'. John Le Carré described Ashenden stories as a major influence on his novels as praised Maugham as "the first person to write anything about espionage in a mood of disenchantment and almost prosaic reality".
At a more popular level, Leslie Charteris' popular and long-running Saint series began, featuring Simon Templar, with Meet the Tiger. Water on the Brain by former intelligence officer Compton Mackenzie was the first successful spy novel satire. Prolific author Dennis Wheatley also wrote his first spy novel, The Eunuch of Stamboul during this period.
In the sham state of Manchukuo, spies often featured in stories published in its government-sponsored magazines as villains threatening Manchukuo. Manchukuo had been presented since its founding in 1931 as an idealistic Pan-Asian experiment, where the officially designated "five races" of the Japanese, Han Chinese, Manchus, Koreans and Mongols had come together to build a utopian society. Manchukuo also had a substantial Russian minority who initially been considered as the "sixth race", but had been excluded. The spy stories of Manchukuo such as "A Mixed Race Woman" by the writer Ding Na often linked the willingness to serve as spies with having a mixed Russian-Han heritage; the implication being that people of "pure" descent from one of the "five races" of Manchukuo would not betray it. In "A Mixed Race Woman", the villain initially appears to Mali, the eponymous character who has a Russian father and a Han mother, but she ultimately is revealed to be blackmailed by the story's true villain, the foreign spy Baoerdun, and she proves to be loyal to Manchukuo after all as she forces the gun out of Baoerdun's hand at the story's climax. However, Ding's story also states that Baoerdun would not dare to have attempted his blackmail scheme against a Han woman and that he targeted Mali because she was racially mixed and hence "weak".
When Japan invaded China in 1937 and even more so in 1941, the level of repression and propaganda in Manchukuo was increased as the state launched a "total war" campaign to mobilise society for the war. As part of the "total war" campaign, the state warned people to be vigilant at all times for spies; alongside this campaign went a mania for spy stories, which likewise warned people to be vigilant against spies. Novels and films with a counterespionage theme became ubiquitous in Manchukuo from 1937 onward. Despite the intensely patriarchal values of Manchukuo, the counter-spy campaign targeted women who were encouraged to report anyone suspicious to the police with one slogan saying, "Women defend inside and men defend outside". The spy stories of Manchukuo such as "A Mixed Race Woman" often had female protagonists. In "A Mixed Race Woman", it is two ordinary women who break up the spy ring instead of the Manchukuo police as might be expected. The South Korean scholar Bong InYoung noted stories such as "A Mixed Race Woman" were part of the state's campaign to take over "...the governance of private and family life, relying on the power of propaganda literature and the nationwide mobilization of the social discourse of counterespionage". At the same time, she noted "A Mixed Race Woman" with its intelligent female protagonists seemed to challenge the patriarchal values of Manchukuo which portrayed women as the weaker sex in need of male protection and guidance. However, Bong noted that the true heroine of "A Mixed Race Woman", Shulan is presented as superior to Mali as she is Han and the story is one "...of female disempowerment in that Mali is completely subordinate to the racial order Shulan sets".
Second World War
The growing support of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain, and the imminence of war, attracted quality writers back to spy fiction.British author Eric Ambler brought a new realism to spy fiction. The Dark Frontier, Epitaph for a Spy, The Mask of Dimitrios, and Journey into Fear feature amateurs entangled in espionage. The politics and ideology are secondary to the personal story that involved the hero or heroine. Ambler's Popular Front–period œuvre has a left-wing perspective about the personal consequences of "big picture" politics and ideology, which was notable, given spy fiction's usual right-wing tilt in defence of establishment attitudes. Ambler's early novels Uncommon Danger and Cause for Alarm, in which NKVD spies help the amateur protagonist survive, are especially remarkable among English-language spy fiction.
Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes, about an anti-Nazi husband and wife spy team, features literate writing and fast-paced, intricate, and suspenseful stories occurring against contemporary historical backgrounds. MacInnes wrote many other spy novels in the course of a long career, including Assignment in Brittany, Decision at Delphi, and Ride a Pale Horse.
Manning Coles published Drink to Yesterday, a grim story occurring during the Great War, which introduces the hero Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon. However, later novels featuring Hambledon were lighter-toned, despite being set either in Nazi Germany or Britain during the Second World War. After the War, the Hambledon adventures fell to formula, losing critical and popular interest.
The events leading up to the Second World War, and the War itself, continue to be fertile ground for authors of spy fiction. Notable examples include Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle ; Alan Furst, Night Soldiers ; and David Downing, the Station series, beginning with Zoo Station.