Espionage fact and fiction collide in this thrilling compendium of spy writing, where some of the greatest spy stories ever told meet the genuine agent records and instructions that altered history. Ian Fleming's genre-defining genius and John le Carré's iconic George Smiley are interspersed with real-life stories of derring-do inside Bolshevik Russia. Literary classics by Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham appear next to never-before-published reports from two of the Cambridge spies. Fully updated with tales of agent-running from the first female Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, and Andy McNab's chilling account of a top-secret mission deep inside IRA territory, this compelling anthology is proof that truth really can be stranger than fiction. With expert commentary, former intelligence officer Michael Smith takes us on a fascinating journey inside the mysterious world of British intelligence. The Secret Agent's Bedside Reader is a must-read for every espionage enthusiast and aspiring agent.

On its first appearance in 1957, Hugh and Graham Greene's The Spy's Bedside Book provoked a storm of interest, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, 100 copies were bought by East German Intelligence. This classic anthology, with a new introduction by the former head of MI5, Stella Rimington, includes stories by some of the great writers on spying and many practitioners, including Ian Fleming and John Buchan, Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Belle Boyd, Walter Schellenberg and Major André, Sir Paul Dukes and Vladimir Petrov, and. from the golden age of mystery and suspense, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim. There are also some unexpected figures: William Blake, D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Mann, all suspected of spying in three great wars. How can you hide messages in a boiled egg? Why should you always put pepper in your vodka when in Russia? Answers to these questions and much more can be found in this thrilling collection, which will enthral readers once again with its tales of espionage from a bygone era.

'An impenetrable mystery seems destined to hang for ever over this act of madness or despair.' Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in London's Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be 'A Simple Tale' proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats and London's fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising interrelations. Based on the text which Conrad's first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a critical introduction which describes Conrad's great London novel as the realization of a 'monstrous town', a place of idiocy, madness, criminality, and butchery. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

For fans of both real spy dramas and fictional ones—both Ben Macintyre and John le Carré—the story of why spies spy. Why do people put their lives at risk to collect intelligence? How do intelligence services ensure that the agents they recruit do their bidding and don't betray them? What makes the perfect spy? Drawing on interviews with active and former British, American, Russian, European, and Asian intelligence officers and agents, Michael Smith creates a layered portrait of why spies spy, what motivates them, and what makes them effective. Love, sex, money, patriotism, risk, adventure, revenge, compulsion, doing the right thing— focusing on the motivations, The Anatomy of a Spy presents a wealth of spy stories, some previously unknown and some famous, from the very human angle of the agents themselves. The accounts of actual spying extend from ancient history to the present, and from running agents inside the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to the recent Russian active measures campaigns and operations to influence votes in the UK, European Union, and United States, penetrating as far as Trump Tower if not the White House.

The Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction is a detailed overview of the rich history and achievements of the British espionage story in literature, cinema and television. It provides detailed yet accessible information on numerous individual authors, novels, films, filmmakers, television dramas and significant themes within the broader field of the British spy story. It contains a wealth of facts, insights and perspectives, and represents the best single source for the study and appreciation of British spy fiction. British spy fiction is widely regarded as the most significant and accomplished in the world and this book is the first attempt to bring together an informed survey of the achievements in the British spy story in literature, cinema and television. The Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on individual authors, stories, films, filmmakers, television shows and the various sub-genres of the British spy story. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about British spy fiction.

Harry Chapman Pincher is regarded as one of the finest investigative reporters of the twentieth century. Over the course of a glittering six-decade career, he became notorious as a relentless investigator of spies and their secret trade, proving to be a constant thorn in the side of the establishment. So influential was he that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once asked, 'Can nothing be done to suppress Mr Chapman Pincher?' It is for his sensational 1981 book, Their Trade is Treachery, that he is perhaps best known. In this extraordinary volume he dissected the Soviet Union's inflitration of the western world and helped unmask the Cambridge Five. He also outlined his suspicions that former MI5 chief Roger Hollis was in fact a super spy at the heart of a ring of double agents poisoning the secret intelligence service from within. However, the Hollis revelation was just one of the book's many astounding coups. Its impact at the time was immense and highly controversial, sending ripples through the British intelligence and political landscapes. Never before had any writer penetrated so deeply and authoritatively into this world - and few have since. Available now for the first time in thirty years, this eye-opening volume is an incomparable and definitive account of the thrilling nature of Cold War espionage and treachery. The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spy stories that should never be forgotten. From the Great War to the Cold War, from the French Resistance to the Cambridge Five, from Special Operations to Bletchley Park, this fascinating spy history series includes some of the best military, espionage and adventure stories ever told.

This book explores the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 from the end of the Second World War to 1964. It argues that MI5 acted with neither statutory authority nor statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources. The book addresses the evolution of MI5's mandate after the Second World War which set out its role and functions, and to a limited extent the lines of accountability, the surveillance targets of MI5 and the surveillance methods that it used for this purpose, with a focus in two chapters on MPs and lawyers respectively; the purposes for which this information was used, principally to exclude people from certain forms of employment; and the accountability of MI5 or the lack thereof for the way in which it discharged its responsibilities under the mandate. As lawyers the authors' concern is to consider these questions within the context of the rule of law, one of the core principles of the British constitution, the values of which it was the duty of the Security Service to uphold. Based on extensive archival research, it suggests that MI5 operated without legal authority or exceeded the legal authority it did have.