The Spy's Bedside Book
  • Published: 15 October 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099519607
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $32.99

The Spy's Bedside Book

Formats & editions
EBook
30 Nov 2012
Paperback
15 Oct 2008
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A classic compendium of espionage stories - fiction, memoir and autobiography - from the pens of some of the greatest writers and most famous spies. With an introduction by Stella Rimington, former head of MI5

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.
  • Published: 15 October 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099519607
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $32.99
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About the authors

Graham Greene

Graham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.

portrait photo of Graham Greene

Hugh Greene

Graham Greene was born in 1904. While at Balliol College, Oxford he published his first book of verse. He continued to write throughout his lifetime, and served with the Secret Intelligence Service during the Second World War. He died in 1991.

Hugh Greene was born in 1910. He came to prominence as a journalist when he became a chief correspondent in Nazi Berlin. During the Second World War he served in the RAF. He went on to join the BBC and was made Director-General in 1960. He died in 1987.

Praise for The Spy's Bedside Book

I fear England will be infested with alien agents who have learned their trade from this revealing and mischievous compilation

The Evening News (London)

[A] marvellous anthology of spy stories

Jeremy Lewis, The Oldie

This charming 1957 curiosity, a compendium of espionage vignettes, will bring out the spy in everyone

Evening Standard
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