Most of Oppenheim’s works are forgotten, yet The Great Impersonation survives because of a strikingly original plot hinging on a double deception. Phillips Oppenheim had written prolifically in the future war genre before publishing his masterpiece, The Great Impersonation (1920). Buchan subsequently produced several more sequels.Į. In Greenmantle (1916), Hannay uncovers the details of a German plot to incite a Muslim uprising in the Middle East that would threaten British India. In The Thirty-nine Steps (1915), published during the second year of World War I, his resourceful protagonist Richard Hannay thwarts a plot to steal Britain’s naval secrets. Working largely in the mold of Childers, Scottish writer and public servant John Buchan played a key role in the development of the espionage novel as a popular genre, writing a number of thrilling narratives of escape and pursuit. Although many readers were put off by the novel’s somber tone and convoluted plot, later writers such as Graham Greene and John le Carré would find its linking of personal and political treachery instructive. Ordered to set off an explosion that will be blamed on his fellow revolutionaries, Verloc tricks his slow-witted stepson into planting the bomb-with fatal results. Set in London and based on real events, the novel centers on the activities of a slothful and conscienceless anarchist, Adolf Verloc, actually in the pay of the Russian embassy. Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad produced an entirely different work a short time later in The Secret Agent (1907). Written by Erskine Childers, the novel is set in the shallow waters off the North Sea coast of Germany and concerns the discovery by two Englishmen, Davies and Carruthers, that the Germans are preparing for a seaborne invasion of Great Britain.Īlthough Childers intended a serious warning about Britain’s vulnerability, he wrote the novel as if it were an adventure, stressing action over character. However, one- The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (1903)-is regarded as a classic of both espionage and sailing fiction. Most examples of the genre have long since been forgotten. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the prospect of war involving two or more of the great European powers fueled a popular genre known as the future war novel. Kim’s growth to adulthood allows Kipling, who was born on the subcontinent, to explore a colorful and engaging cross-section of contemporary Indian society. The novel’s engaging Anglo-Indian protagonist Kimball “Kim” O’Hara is an orphan who becomes involved in several aspects of the Great Game. The novel deals in part with the Great Game, the struggle between the British and Russian empires for control of Central Asia. The first is Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901), set on the frontier of British India. The first two decades of the twentieth century saw the appearance of half a dozen significant espionage novels of varying literary worth. War, impending war, international crises, shifting perceptions of world power and influence, real-life episodes of espionage-all have inspired the durable and popular genre of espionage fiction. Even less successful efforts provide crucial insights into the social, political, and psychological makeup of their troubled times.Įspionage novels traditionally mirror world events. In time, a few espionage novels-those that explore not only the craft of spying but also what celebrated novelist Graham Greene called the human factor-have gained classic status. This combination of factors has proven attractive to readers, who have made many espionage novels best sellers. With this new theme, writers could begin to explore questions of courage, loyalty, and patriotism against a background of international conflict and intrigue. Espionage-spying on enemies to obtain strategic information-is an age-old practice, but its treatment in fiction did not begin in earnest until the late nineteenth century.
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