Le Carré was born David John Moore Cornwell in Poole, Dorsetshire, England, on Oct. 19, 1931. He graduated from Oxford University in 1956 and worked as a tutor at Eton College for two years. His third novel, ‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold', published in 1963, was an enormous success and was made into a motion picture in 1965. From that time he devoted himself to a writing career. Other popular Le Carré books were ‘The Looking-Glass War' (1965), ‘A Small Town in Germany' (1968), ‘The Little Drummer Girl' (1983), ‘A Perfect Spy' (1986), and ‘The Russia House' (1989).

Of the spy-heroes Le Carré has created, none has become more popular than the intrepid, brilliant, and sometimes plodding George Smiley, an agent for the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI-6 (see Intelligence Agencies). He is the main character in Le Carré's first two novels and in the three later novels ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' (1974), ‘The Honourable Schoolboy' (1977), and ‘Smiley's People' (1980).