Ian Lancaster Fleming was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. In 1914 Fleming attended Durnford School, a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. He did not enjoy his time at Durnford; he suffered unpalatable food, physical hardship and bullying. In May 1939 Fleming was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intellig... Read More
Ian Fleming, in full Ian Lancaster Fleming, was a suspense-fiction novelist whose character James Bond, the stylish, high-living British secret service agent 007, who became one of the most successful and widely imitated heroes of 20th-century popular fiction. As well as the hugely successful Bond novels, Ian Fleming also wrote the novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, on which the 19... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, ten miles south of Inverness. While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story "Dileas". The publishing company Collins asked him for a... Read More
Scottish novelist Alistair MacLean never planned to become a writer. After serving in the British Royal Navy during World War II, MacLean attended Glasgow University, where he received a degree in English literature. After working briefly as a hospital porter, MacLean secured a job teaching at a secondary school just outside of Glasgow. When he entered his short story "The Dileas" in a competit... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean, the son of a Scots Minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy; two and a half years spent aboard a cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. He was responsible for firing torpedoes during World War II and offered his ser... Read More
When The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was first published in September 1963, David John Moore Cornwell, better known to the world by his pen name, John le Carré was still serving as a political consul in Hamburg, Germany. His real job was as an officer of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author. The Looking Glas... Read More
John le Carré was born in Poole, England, on October 19, 1931. He had a gloomy childhood, thanks to the disruptive motions of his father, an erratic businessman who kept the family moving from place to place. After attending a series of private English schools, le Carré was called upon for national service and spent several years in Vienna with the Army Intelligence Corps. When the term expired... Read More
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a 1963 Cold War spy novel by the British author John le Carré. It depicts Alec Leamas, a British agent, being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer. This novel became an international best-seller. Alec Leamas is waiting in West Berlin at the Wall for Karl Riemeck to come across. Riemec... Read More
In 1960, British author John le Carré, whose real name is David John Moore Cornwell, resumed his intelligence career with the Foreign Service. During this time he began writing novels, the first entitled Call for the Dead. Two years later he resigned from the Foreign Service to devote himself entirely to writing. He achieved international fame as the author of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.... Read More
David John Moore Cornwell, better known by the pen name John le Carré, is a British author of espionage novels. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works. Le Carré has resided in St Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than 40 years, where he owns a mile of cliff close to Land's End. His later books inclu... Read More
Richard Gary Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often employs black comedy, parody, and satire. Brautigan grew up in the Pacific Northwest and had an unhappy childhood. His parents separated before he was born, and his family, which relocated often, suffered abject poverty for a time. As a teenager, he was committed to the Oregon State Hospital, where he... Read More
Daphne du Maurier is one of the most successful and prolific authors of the 20th century, with a writing career that spanned more than 40 years. During World War II, though, Browning was stationed in France and du Maurier focused on her second love: Menabilly. She leased the house while Browning was still in France, in spite of the fact that it was almost completely dilapidated. Soon after her... Read More
John Hoyer Updike was an American writer, poet, literary critic and novelist. He was born on 18th March 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Updike was the only child of Wesley Russell Updike, a mathematics teacher and an aspiring writer Linda Grace Hoyer. Updike’s initial desire was to become a cartoonist. To pursue this goal he entered the ‘The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts’ at the Univers... Read More
Edmond Moore Hamilton was a popular author of science fiction stories and novels throughout the mid-twentieth century. His career as a science fiction writer began with the publication of the story, “The Monster God of Mamurth,” which appeared in the August 1926 issue of the classic magazine of alternative fiction, Weird Tales. Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of... Read More
Destination: Void is a science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, the first set in the Destination: Void universe. It first appeared in Galaxy Magazine in August 1965, under the title "Do I Wake or Dream?", but was published as Destination: Void in book form the following year. In the novel’s future, humans have overcome the problems of cloning, and are moving on to artificial inte... Read More
The Santaroga Barrier is a 1968 science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert. Considered to be an "alternative society" or "alternative culture" novel, it deals with themes such as psychology, the counterculture of the 1960s, and psychedelic drugs. David Pringle rated The Santaroga Barrier three stars out of four and described the novel as "one of Herbert's more effective treatments o... Read More
Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. was an American science fiction writer best known for the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his long novels of fantasy, he was also a newspaper journalist, photographer, short story writer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer. Published in 1965, Frank Herbert’s Dune is a classic science fiction novel about Paul Atreides... Read More
Frank Herbert created the most beloved novels in the annals of science fiction. He was a man of many facets, of countless passageways that ran through an intricate mind. Dune Messiah is a science fiction novel and the second in his Dune series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1969. The Dune saga, set in the distant future, and taking place over millennia, deals... Read More
Agatha Christie was an English detective novelist and playwright. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 3 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books. A few years prior to the start of the story, Mrs Bantry, a friend of Miss Marple, sold her home,... Read More
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan was an English writer. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. A Caribbean Mystery was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 16 November 1964 and in the... Read More